Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Capital Gains (Tax)

Mr. C. Johnson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many individuals or firms, during each of the past three years, have disclosed that they make a business of seeking capital gains on the Stock Exchange or in property or other deals; and how much Income Tax, Surtax and Profits Tax, respectively, has been paid on the profits from such activities.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): This information is not available.

Mr. C. Johnson: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman not aware that a large number of people are making capital gains in this way, and that there is strong evidence that many are making a living at it? In these circumstances, and in view of the very strong language that the Chancellor himself used in his Budget speech about enforcing the law against such people, and his saying, rather grandiloquently, "This is the law", does he not think that there is some obligation on him to show to the House that the Income Tax law is being enforced?

Mr. Lloyd: My Answer was that the particular information for which the hon. Gentleman asked is not available. Of course, the Inland Revenue is making every endeavour to enforce the law. As for the general point, whether it was grandiloquent or not, I stand by what I said in my Budget speech.

Decimal Coinage

Mr. Proudfoot: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration he has given to the advantages of a system of decimal coinage in facilitating the alteration, by rebate or surcharge, of Purchase Tax and Excise duties.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have given no specific consideration to the advantages of a decimal coinage system in this connection.

Mr. Proudfoot: Has my right hon. and learned Friend realised that this would be most helpful to his staff and, more important, to consumers?

Mr. Lloyd: I am told that in this case it is not thought that it would make very much practical difference. Nevertheless, I do not want my hon. Friend to think that that means that I am not very interested in the matter to which he is so much attached.

Mr. du Cann: My right hon. and learned Friend has, I know, the whole question of the introduction of decimal currency in consideration. Can he tell us when he thinks that it may be possible for him to make an announcement in the matter, particularly as so many Commonwealth territories have now introduced decimal currencies?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that I could give my hon. Friend even an estimate without notice, but I will consider the matter and try to let him know.

Repertory Theatres (Grants)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an assurance that the increased grants in aid, which he intends to make available to support the repertory theatre movement in this country, will be made available, in accordance with their needs, artistic standards, and public value, to all repertory theatres whether profit distributing or not; and whether he will make this principle clear to the Arts Council before it finalises the proposals which he has requested it to make to him on this subject.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. It is a fundamental principle of Arts Council


policy that its grants and guarantees are available only to non-profit-distributing companies.

Sir G. Nicholson: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the drama derives a good deal of support, inspiration and personnel from the repertory theatre movement? Will he do all he can to foster it?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly will do all I can to foster the repertory movement. With regard to the case of profit-distributing companies, I would be very grateful if my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) would put before me any facts about their situation.

Mr. G. Jeger: Is the Chancellor aware that his statement, when turning down the National Theatre project, that he was to give support to provincial theatres, has caused a great deal of confusion as to the exact form in which that assistance will be made available? Will he ask the Arts Council to expedite its consideration of the matter because, meanwhile, theatres in the provinces are closing at the rate of one or two every week?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not admit that there is confusion. I am very surprised at the hon. Gentleman's statement that provincial theatres are closing at the rate of one or two every week; I do not believe that to be the case. However, I am certainly not out of sympathy with his suggestion. I think that it is important that we should establish the position as quickly as possible.

Unemployed Persons (Special Compensation)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has, apart from unemployment benefit, for compensating workers who are removed from their employment as a result of the operation of his proposals for regulating labour supply, in cases where they fail to obtain suitable employment.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have no plans for special compensation of the sort suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. The employment situation would, of course, be borne in mind before using this instrument, if the power to use it is

granted by the House. Its effect in the way suggested would be one of the primary considerations in deciding whether or not to use it.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it not surprising that the Chancellor has a scheme, but no plan to go with it? What is to be the position of a man who is deliberately pushed out of employment by the application of the Chancellor's payroll policy, in contrast to someone who loses his employment because of a trade recession? Surely, if a man becomes unemployed as a result of Government policy, he is entitled to some additional consideration.

Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir. I think that the House has to face the fact that with any kind of economic regulator there is bound to be hardship in certain cases. It is quite pointless to think otherwise, or to try to persuade people that there will not be hardship. I certainly admit that there would be hardship in certain circumstances in this instance, and that hardship would be one of the primary considerations to be borne in mind in deciding whether to use the regulator.

Mr. Jay: But does not the Chancellor realise that this is not a question of hardship, but of economic waste as a result of making people unemployed? Can he not give an assurance that this payroll surcharge will not be applied in areas that are development districts under the Local Employment Act?

Mr. Lloyd: I am not prepared to give such an assurance at present. This must be a weapon to be kept in reserve.

Mr. Shinwell: Does that mean that when the Government, as a result of the application of their policy, deliberately cause hardship, no compensation is to be provided to the person who is the victim of that policy?

Mr. Lloyd: When the hire-purchase restrictions were put on, they caused hardship.

National Income and Expenditure

Mr. du Cann: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table showing for each of the last 15 years the total national income, the total of all Government and local government expenditure,


and the percentage the latter is of the former.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Yes, Sir. With permission, I will circulate the table in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. du Cann: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he will be good enough to consider publishing these figures on an annual basis, so that the country as a whole can see whether Government expenditure in relation to national income is being contained or otherwise? Would he now say whether those figures show, as a trend, a decrease or an increase?

Mr. Lloyd: They show a varying trend—the figures are from 1946 onwards—but, as I think I have said, the last three years show an upward trend. I think that the answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question is also "Yes, Sir".

Following is the table:

Year
Gross national product at factor cost*
Central and local Government expenditure†
Col. (3) as a percentage of col. (2)


(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)



£ million
£ million



1946
8,787
4,577
52·1


1947
9,387
4,175
44·5


1948
10,446
4,232
40·5


1949
11,136
4,587
41·2


1950
11,695
4,588
39·2


1951
12,850
5,257
40·9


1952
14,005
5,833
41·6


1953
14,951
6,101
40·8


1954
15,981
6,039
37·8


1955
17,033
6,241
36·6


1956
18,380
6,772
36·8


1957
19,472
6,978
35·8


1958
20,392
7,417
36·4


1959
21,081
7,824
37·1


1960
22,292
8,334
37·4


* The figures for 1955–1960 are taken from the recent National Income White Paper (Cmnd. 1333) and incorporate revisions which have not yet been carried back to the figures for earlier years. The effect of the revisions in 1955 was to reduce the figure in the final column by 0·2.


† These figures are taken from Table 42 of the Blue Book "National Income and Expenditure 1960" with comparable figures for 1946–1949 and 1960. They cover current and capital expenditure on goods and services, debt interest, subsidies and grants by the Central Government (including the National Insurance Funds) and local authorities but exclude loans and other transactions in financial assets.

British Museum Reading Room (Opening Hours)

Dr. Stross: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will now make possible the opening of the Reading Room in the British Museum for five nights a week.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. I have nothing to add to the replies I gave to the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), on 21st February.

Dr. Stross: Has not the right hon. and learned Gentleman noticed that the Reading Room is in future to close at 9 o'clock instead of at 9.30? Secondly, does he really believe that one of the greatest libraries in the world should be denied to people who have time only in the evenings, especially as about 100 are still there at 9 o'clock each night when the Reading Room is open?

Mr. Lloyd: I have had a report on the matter. Not all the evidence tends the same way as the hon. Member suggests, but, as I have said before, I propose to give this experiment a full trial and then decide whether it should be extended or continued.

Mr. H. Wilson: In comparison with the very large figures that we were debating last week, would the Chancellor of the Exchequer say what would be the cost of doing what my hon. Friend asks? While taking note of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said in his Budget speech about candle ends, may I ask whether this candle end is not rather too small for him to be chasing after when there are far bigger ones that he is not chasing after?

Mr. Lloyd: If the right hon. Gentleman gives me notice of that, I will consider the size of the candle end.

Mr. Hale: Will the Chancellor also bear in mind that while every user of the Reading Room greatly appreciates the efficiency, courtesy and ability of the staff, it still takes nearly an hour and a half to get a book at the Reading Room as compared with twelve or fifteen minutes at the Bibliothèque Nationale?

Mr. Lloyd: I will take note of the hon. Gentleman's point.

Education Costs and Personal Savings (Tax Relief)

Mr. Wade: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will include in the Finance Bill provisions for special reliefs in respect of the costs of children's education and of personal saving for married men whose gross earned income does not exceed £5,000 a year.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir.

Mr. Wade: In view of the Chancellor's statement last week about the difficulty of a man earning £5,000 a year being able to provide for the education of his children and to save, may I ask him, first, whether he is assuming that all Surtax payers send their children to fee-paying schools, or, in his calculation, does he envisage some extension of fee-paying? Secondly, if it is so difficult for a man earning £5,000 a year to provide for the education of his children and to save, has the Chancellor any proposals for helping those earning £2,000 a year or less? [HON. MEMBERS: "£1,750."] Is not their difficulty even greater?

Mr. Lloyd: As to the first part of his supplementary question, I think that the hon. Gentleman is quite right; I was basing my remark on the assumption that they would send their children to a fee-paying school or, under the university grant system, would pay a substantial amount for university education.
As to the way in which I try to help them, there will be some assistance to them and to others in certain income groups lower than that in my proposals, but I will say this to the hon. Gentleman. There was a certain amount of laughter when I made the remark about the £5,000-a-year man not being rich, but I am not certain that people would laugh quite so much if they realised that the net income of a man earning £5,000 a year gross before my changes is equivalent to the net income of a man earning £1,400 a year gross in 1937, and £770 gross in 1912.

Mr. H. Wilson: But after all these calculations, is it not a simple fact that that man's net income after taxation is still a good deal higher than the net income after taxation of a man earning £2,000, £1,500, or £1,000 a year? Is not

that a fairly obvious point? If that is true, and if there are all these difficulties at the £5,000-a-year level, why does not the Chancellor address himself to the obviously greater difficulties of those on a much lower level of income, including old-age pensioners?

Mr. Lloyd: Substantial efforts have been made to alleviate the problem for lower-income groups in the past—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—certainly they have—and this time my proposals will deal with Surtax payers.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Chancellor aware that this remark of his has greatly interested the miners working at the Barony Colliery, Auchinleck, in my constituency? Will he come to Auchinleck and address the miners there on the difficulties of those earning £5,000 a year?

Mr. Lloyd: No, except in so far as they may understand my plan, because, irrespective of the way they cast their votes, they are people of great political sense.

Mr. Jay: Does not the Chancellor think that it is also difficult for those on £1,000 a year to survive under his administration?

Mr. Lloyd: I should not think it is anything like as difficult as it was under the administration of night hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Building Societies (Profits Tax)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated additional amount of Profits Tax that will have to be paid by building societies.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Approximately £½ million.

Mr. Lipton: Is it not obvious that if this extra Profits Tax is charged on building societies already operating on fairly narrow margins, about 2¼ million borrowers from those societies will have to pay higher rates of interest? Will the Chancellor bear in mind that ½ per cent. increase on a mortgage on a £2,000 house is equivalent to 11s. 8d. a month? Has he in mind the hardships that may be entailed for those 2¼ million borrowers?

Mr. Lloyd: The point is that the Royal Commission recommended that building societies should pay Profits Tax, and should be charged Profits Tax on the same basis on which other concerns are charged. I do not see my way to making an exception.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Unemployment Areas (New Industrial Projects)

Mrs. Hart: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will recommend to the National Research and Development Corporation that it should consider the needs of areas of unemployment for new industry when investing in new industrial projects.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Niall Macpherson): My right hon. Friend is asking the Corporation to bear this consideration in mind, although he thinks that in practice there is little scope for it to help.

Mrs. Hart: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the development announced in the recent Report of the National Research and Development Corporation on investing in a number of shares in a new company making printed electrical circuits was welcomed by very many who would like to see an extension of State enterprise in this direction, and that one would hope that the President of the Board of Trade, in putting forward this suggestion to the Corporation, would particularly emphasise the needs of Scotland, where there is a dearth of science-trade industries?

Mr. Macpherson: I am sure that that is one of the considerations which the National Research and Development Corporation will have in mind, although as the hon. Lady is clearly aware, most of its expenditure is development expenditure on a contract basis in collaboration with existing firms or research institutions.

Lamp Manufacturing Industry (Tenders)

Mrs. Slater: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the continued identical tendering of firms to local authorities for lamps; and what evidence he has received of monopoly

conditions in the lamp manufacturing industry in the course of considering further references to the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. N. Macpherson: The prices indicated in the schedules of tenders for electric lamps sent to my right hon. Friend by the hon. Member are by no means all identical. Since the Monopolies Commission reported in 1951, the Board of Trade have received very few complaints about the supply and prices of electric lamps.
The information which the hon. Member has sent gives my right hon. Friend no reason to think that in this industry the conditions to which the Act of 1948 applies prevail, but he will be glad to consider any further evidence which the hon. Member may wish to bring to his notice on this point.

Mrs. Slater: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that in the list submitted to him by the Stoke-on-Trent Council there was identical tendering except in two cases? Is not that sort of thing happening time and time again, resulting in the expenditure of large sums of money by a public authority which is endeavouring to light its streets properly? Has not the time come for a review of this matter?

Mr. Macpherson: In the list that I saw there were at least two firms which were prepared to offer electric lamps below the general level of prices, and one was offering them at above that level. In one case, a firm was offering some above and some below.
As I have said, if the hon. Lady has any evidence of the existence of an agreement, it ought to be brought to the attention of the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements.

Mr. Jay: As my hon. Friend has already brought this information to the attention of the hon. Gentleman, is it not his duty to pass it on to the Registrar?

Mr. Macpherson: That is what I am suggesting to the hon. Lady—that she should pass it on, because it is open to anybody to do so. We have no evidence whatever of the existence of any such agreement. If anyone has any evidence, it is up to him to pass it on to the Registrar.

Mr. Jay: If it is open to anybody to do so, and the Parliamentary Secretary has had the information from my hon. Friend and the local authority, is there not a duty on him to make it available to the Registrar?

Mr. Macpherson: No, Sir, because, as I have said, there is no indication, from the evidence submitted, that there is any such agreement.

Overseas Governments (Import Restrictions)

Mr. C. Osborne: asked the President of the Board of Trade what reply he has sent to the communication sent to him by a Leicester knitwear company, which last year exported 37½ per cent. of its total production as against 12 per cent. exported by the whole trade, complaining that its exports were shut out suddenly by new import restrictions imposed by an overseas Government, and that two other markets had been partially lost by new restrictions; if he will make representations to get these restrictions removed; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the case which he mentioned in his speech in the House on the 22nd February and on which I made some observations later in the debate on that day. I have since discussed the complaints fully with the head of the firm concerned. The restrictions apply to imports from all sources and do not discriminate against those from the United Kingdom, nor are they contrary to the international obligations of the countries concerned. We shall continue to do all we can to help our exporters, but to urge other countries to import goods which they cannot afford benefits neither them nor us.

Mr. C. Osborne: What I am proposing to my right hon. Friend is that where a foreign country arbitrarily and suddenly excludes all imports without giving traders notice, and at times shuts out goods which are on the ocean, actually in transit, he should use his power to say to them that if they do that to our goods we shall use the same powers to stop the stuff which they send to us. Is he aware that the trade could do with some help of that kind, and, if so, will he provide it?

Mr. Erroll: We make representations, whenever import cuts are arbitrarily made, to ensure that goods already in transit are allowed into the country and paid for, but it would not be fair for us to try to go further than that.

Cement Manufacturing Industry (Tenders)

Mrs. Slater: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that tenders received by local authorities for cement supplied by members of the Cement Makers Federation are often identical; and if, in view of this evidence of monopoly conditions and in view of the completion of consideration of agreements relating to cement prices by the Restrictive Practices Court, he will now refer this industry to the Monopolies Commission for examination.

Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend is aware that tenders for cement are usually identical, no doubt as a result of the Cement Makers' Federation Agreement. This Agreement has recently been found by the Restrictive Practices Court to be consistent with the public interest. Agreements subject to the jurisdiction of that Court are outside the purview of the Monopolies Commission.

Mrs. Slater: Does not that kind of Answer make nonsense of the whole question of monopoly? Is it not obvious that in one case the answer is that nothing can be done because there is not identical tendering, and that in this case, when there is, the answer is that it is consistent with the law and is, therefore, in the public interest? Does not the hon. Member agree that every local authority—to whom the Government make grants—is affected by this kind of ring?

Mr. Macpherson: There are two distinct cases. One is the monopoly where there is one person involved. The other is where several persons are involved and where there is an agreement among them. The Court found that the agreement resulted in cement prices being fixed at a reasonable level and that the public interest was, therefore, in no way damaged.

Mrs. Slater: Does not the hon. Member realise that that is in absolute contradiction to the argument which hon.


Members opposite continually put to us when they say that we must have competition? Is not this a case in which there is absolutely no competition because there is an agreement to have none?

Mr. Macpherson: I think that the hon. Lady will recognise that price competition is not the only form of competition.

Trade with South-East Asia

Mr. C. Osborne: asked the President of the Board of Trade what help he has given to the four British trade missions now fact-finding in South-East Asia, under the leadership of Sir Edward Thompson; who will represent him at the conference to be held in Singapore; if he will be seeing the delegation on their return; if bigger long-term credits will be available; what restrictions prevent low-priced goods from South-East Asia being imported into the United Kingdom; what requests he has received from the governments of South-East Asian countries for action to stabilise raw material prices; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Erroll: As the Question asked by my hon. Friend raises a number of points which cannot be answered briefly I will, with permission, circulate the Answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Osborne: When this team makes its report on conditions in South-East Asia and makes recommendations about the steps which could be taken to increase our exports to that area, will my right hon. Friend promise that his Department will then give serious consideration?

Mr. Erroll: I assure my hon. Friend that we will very closely study the recommendations. The report is to be made to British industry and commerce and also to Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Osborne: Will it be published?

Following is the information:
The British Trade Delegation, which is working through four simultaneous missions to Indonesia. Thailand and Burma, Malaya and Singapore and the Philippines and British Borneo, was formed by the Federation of British Industries at my invitation and is being jointly sponsored by the F.B.I. and the Board

of Trade. The Government has assisted in the planning, organisation and briefing of these Missions and the services of H.M. Representatives abroad, who have also assisted in this, are fully available to the Missions during their tours. I have also agreed with the F.B.I. to contribute to the expenses of the Missions. H.M. Government will be represented at the final conference to be held in Singapore by Lord Selkirk, Commissioner General in South-East Asia, who will take the chair, and by H.M. Commercial Diplomatic Officers and Trade Commissioners in the countries being visited. These officials will have accompanied the missions on their tours in the individual countries concerned. I look forward to meeting the Delegation on its return.
United Kingdom trade with the area now being studied should benefit from the improved credit insurance facilities which my right hon. Friend announced on 12th April. I shall consider any recommendations the Mission may make on the desirability of any further facilities of this sort.
With only very minor exceptions, there are no restrictions on imports into the United Kingdom from the countries being visited by the missions. No requests have been received from the Governments of the countries being visited for action to stabilise raw material prices.

Motor Car Sales (American Service Men)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the continuing importance of earning foreign currency, he will ask the United States Government to reopen facilities, now closed, for British cars to be sold on United States bases and for United States Service personnel to retain British cars for more than a year free of Purchase Tax prior to export.

Mr. Erroll: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Hobson) on 18th April.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: When my hon. Friend is making representations to the American authorities on this subject, will he bear in mind that traders have been earning about £1½ million worth of dollars a year by selling cars to the Americans? Will he point out to the Americans that it is rather unfair that only American cars can be sold on these bases and that that is contrary to the spirit of the message of President Kennedy to Congress when he said, "Protectionism is no answer to our problems"?

Mr. Erroll: The United States Government have not imposed a direct ban on the purchase of British cars by United States Service men. My right hon. Friend has made known to the United States Government his concern about the matter.

Mr. Bullard: Was there any consultation between the American and British Governments before this ban was instituted—I know that it is not an absolute ban—on the sale of British cars through the PX? Is not this an arbitrary action and should there not have been consultation?

Mr. Erroll: There was no consultation, but we were informed of the decision.

New Jobs, Blyth

Mr. Milne: asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of new jobs likely to be available in the Blyth constituency during the next six months.

Mr. N. Macpherson: In the combined employment exchange areas of Bedlington Station, Blyth and Seaton Delaval, which comprise most of the hon. Member's constituency, expansions by local firms should produce about 700 new jobs over the next three or four years. I cannot say how many of these will become available during the next six months.

Mr. Milne: I thank the hon. Member for the figures and the slight encouragement which they give to the area, but does he not realise, from the visits which he and his right hon. Friend have paid to my constituency, that something bold and imaginative is required to tackle the problems of the area? Will he consider scheduling the south-east of Northumberland as a development district?

Mr. Macpherson: This matter is under constant consideration, but the present figures of unemployment do not justify my right hon. Friend in deciding that it comes within the terms of the Local Employment Act.

Mr. Milne: asked the President of the Board of Trade what new jobs have been made available in the Blyth constituency during the years 1958, 1959, and 1960.

Mr. Macpherson: In the employment exchange areas of Bedlington Station, Blyth and Seaton Delaval together, three industrial building schemes were completed in the three years 1958, 1959 and 1960. Blyth "A" power station was also completed within this period. The employment provided by these four schemes is over 400.

Mr. Milne: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that Answer merely adds weight to the comments which I made in my supplementary question on the previous Question?

Mr. Macpherson: It also adds weight to my reply, because it still remains a fact that the average rates of unemployment over the year were 1·4 per cent. for Bedlington Station, 2·5 per cent. for Blyth, and 3·1 per cent. for Seaton Delaval.

Circuit Cinemas (British Quota)

Mr. Swingler: asked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the continued closure of cinemas and the resulting predominance of two major circuits, he will reconsider the question of introducing a different and higher level of British quota for these circuits, compared with other cinemas.

Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend has no power under the Films Act, 1960, to prescribe a different and higher level of quota for circuit cinemas.

Mr. Swingler: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that this suggestion was made when the quota legislation was last revised and that a request by the President of the Board of Trade for legislative power to do this would be welcome? If we are to maintain the level of British film production with fewer outlets as cinemas close, it is necessary to have a higher quota. In view of the predominant position of the two major circuits, is it not ridiculous to continue with a situation in which the two major circuits have only the same quota as the remaining and smaller cinemas?

Mr. Macpherson: It is a fact that the two circuits are achieving a higher quota, but the reasons why this suggestion was rejected at the time remain valid.

Butter Supplies

Sir A. Hurd: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent increased supplies of butter in recent weeks are responsible for the fall in United Kingdom prices; from which countries additional quantities are coming; and what evidence he has of export subsidies, direct or indirect, which could be countered by anti-dumping duties in the interests of the home producer, New Zealand and other regular suppliers.

Mr. Erroll: Most butter prices in the United Kingdom have fallen in the last six months, against a background of increasing supplies from home production and higher imports from various countries, including Argentina, France and the Republic of Ireland. The fall in prices has been causing concern to supplying countries and international discussions of the problem have been taking place.
As regards the last part of the Question, it would not be appropriate for me to anticipate the consideration which would be given to an application under the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act, 1957, if one were made.

Sir A. Hurd: Are these discussions proceeding and, if so, will they be brought to a conclusion soon? Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the Board of Trade will keep a constant watch on doubtful practices pursued by some countries to stimulate their exports of butter and eggs to this country and ensure that his Department is ready to act as soon as circumstances warrant?

Mr. Erroll: The discussions have been useful and a number of recommendations have been made, including that the traditional suppliers to the United Kingdom should send only normal amounts and that others should avoid exporting to the United Kingdom. I think that we should see how those recommendations work out. We are keeping our eyes wide open on this matter.

Colour Film Processing Industry

Mr. Steele: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will refer the colour film processing industry to the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend will bear the hon. Member's suggestion in mind when considering possible new references to the Monopolies Commission, and he will gladly consider any relevant information the hon. Member cares to send him.

Mr. Steele: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that representations have been made in the past two years to the Monopolies Commission, but that, so far, nothing has been done? Is he aware that the two large firms are now marketing their films in such a manner as to have complete monopoly? Are not the representations of the trade worthy of consideration?

Mr. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend has received only one representation—from Glasgow—on this subject, but he would be very glad to receive further information from the hon. Member.

Mr. Steele: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this matter has been mentioned in two reports of the Monopolies Commission itself?

Mr. Macpherson: No, I was not aware of that, but I shall certainly look into the matter.

Employment, Bishop Auckland District

Mr. Boyden: asked the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he has to relieve general unemployment and also provide a reasonable choice of occupation for juveniles in such villages as Cockfield, Woodlands, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Eggleston, Stairdrop, Copley and Butterknowle in the Bishop Auckland constituency.

Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend would be glad to see suitable further employment provided in all these villages. In those of them which are in the Bishop Auckland development disstrict the facilities of the Local Employment Act are available.

Mr. Boyden: How many factory sites in these villages, or within two miles of them, are known to the hon. Gentleman's Department? Since the passing of the Local Employment Act, how many industrialists have been taken to any of these places?

Mr. Macpherson: I should require notice of both those rather particular questions.

Mr. Boyden: Is not that a comment on the lack of energy of the Board of Trade? There is a serious problem for nearly all these villages, yet the Parliamentary Secretary does not seem to know what the facts are. Will he instruct his Department at least to investigate the position?

Mr. Macpherson: The records for which the hon. Gentleman is asking would need some compiling. I did not think it necessary to take them out to answer his Question, but if he asks, I will try to get him the information.

Mr. Lee: Will not the Parliamentary Secretary agree that, according to his Answer, we are spending a lot of money under the Local Employment Act and we are now to spend more public money, through the payroll tax, to ensure that the work of the Act is not effective? Will the hon. Gentleman look into that?

Mr. Macpherson: I shall certainly consult my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Employment, Aberdeen

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the recent increased unemployment in Aberdeen, resulting in diminution in Great Britain's productivity, exports, and intake of foreign currency; and, in view of his responsibility for development areas, if he will consult with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Labour with a view to rectifying this situation.

Mr. N. Macpherson: My information is that, despite some recent redundancies, unemployment in Aberdeen is decreasing. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend would be glad to see more industry going there; he keeps in close touch with his right hon. Friends on this matter.

Mr. Hughes: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that there have been a number of dismissals at Messrs. Hall, Russell's shipyard and other places in Aberdeen and that one good way of rectifying the grave situation would be by a fair distribution of existing industry

and by publicising the excellent shipyards and other works in Aberdeen which are available for the relevant industries?

Mr. Macpherson: The hon. and learned Member himself does a very good job in publicising Aberdeen's shipbuilding facilities, but the fact remains that unemployment in Aberdeen has been dwindling and that the average for the area is lower than the average for Scotland.

B.O.T.A.C. Aid, West Dunbartonshire

Mr. Steele: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many applications for aid have been made to the Board of Trade Advisory Committee from West Dunbartonshire; and how many have been granted.

Mr. N. Macpherson: Applications have been received from seven firms. Three have been offered assistance—though one has refused the offer—three have been rejected, and one is still under consideration.

Mr. Steele: That means that so far none has been given any assistance. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that recently, when he was kind enough to meet a deputation from my constituency in which the assistance of the Board of Trade was offered, B.O.T.A.C. was, on the same day, turning down an application from a firm in my constituency, which was to extend an application which I had vetted and which I felt was one which could be accepted?
In view of the fact that that application has been turned down, the firm is likely to go out of business. Can the hon. Gentleman say whether anything further can be done by the Board of Trade? Surely he ought to do something, because it is now being widely said that the only firm which is successful in getting an application granted is one which does not require assistance.

Mr. Macpherson: I believe that the other two which were offered assistance have accepted it and, therefore, it will be forthcoming.
I will look into the second part of the question and consider whether anything can be done, but, as has been pointed out, the Board of Trade


Advisory Committee makes recommendations and our powers are only to accept the recommendations for assistance or to refuse them. The Board of Trade has no power itself to override the Board of Trade Advisory Committee.

Local Employment Act (Financial Assistance)

Mr. McInnes: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the delay in determining the financial assistance that can be given under the provisions of the Local Employment Act; and what proposals he has to eliminate such delays.

Mr. N. Macpherson: There was certainly delay last year while the Advisory Committee was disposing of a considerable backlog of cases submitted under previous legislation. But, once the applicant has submitted up-to-date accounts and other necessary information, cases are now dealt with in about two months.

Mr. McInnes: Not only were delays taking place last year, but even during the present year. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that all the organisations in Scotland which are engaged in attracting new industries to Scotland are absolutely disgusted at the unwarrantable delays taking place. Will the hon. Gentleman look further into the matter and see that some definite improvement takes place?

Mr. Macpherson: I think that the hon. Member is exaggerating somewhat, to say the least. The main delay which takes place is as a result of the difficulty that some applicants find in preparing the information, getting their statement of accounts, and sending in with an estimate of their business prospects. Once all that is before the Board of Trade Advisory Committee, the delay, as I say, averages about two months.

Mr. Woodnutt: Would my hon. Friend agree that some of the supplementary questions regarding assistance under the Local Employment Act are giving a completely wrong impression in the country? Would he agree that in most constituencies his Department is working extremely well and that they are finding that the Act to be of great benefit to them?

Mr. Macpherson: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. The fact is that about £14 million of grants and loans have been offered in Scotland under the existing Act.

Mr. Willis: asked the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received from the Scottish Council, Development and Industry concerning the arrangements for deciding the financial assistance to be given to firms wishing to go to scheduled areas of high un employment under the Local Employment Act, 1960; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. N. Macpherson: None, Sir. The second part of the Question, therefore, does not arise.

Mr. Willis: Will the hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend to consult the Secretary of State for Scotland, who has received representations from the Scottish Council, which claims that hundreds of jobs have been lost in Scotland because of the delays under this Act? Is not this sufficiently important for the Board of Trade to put itself to some bother about the delays, to get the information, and then take some steps about it?

Mr. Macpherson: I do not think that the hon. Member is entirely correct. The comparison that is being made is between the Local Employment Act and assistance which can be offered in Northern Ireland, but the Local Employment Act applies throughout Great Britain. It is the same everywhere. The jobs have not been lost in Scotland because of B.O.T.A.C. delays.

Mr. Jay: Has the Board of Trade asked the Scottish Council if it wishes the Government's new payroll tax to apply to Scotland? If not, will the Board of Trade do so?

Mr. Macpherson: I prefer to await any further announcement my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer may have to make.

Exporters (Tax Concessions)

Sir Harmar Nicholls: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government mutually to agree with other countries to amend existing agreements


connected with giving tax concessions to exporters; and what factors limit the pursuit of such a policy.

Mr. Erroll: The policy of Her Majesty's Government is to secure the elimination of export subsidies and to this end we have sought to strengthen the international rules which restrict the grant of tax concessions for exports. This policy enjoys the support of organised industry.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that in the event of our thinking it worth while to introduce a tax concession there would be nothing wrong in approaching other countries which would be affected to agree mutually to alter the internal terms?

Mr. Erroll: I would not care to answer a question as hypothetical as that.

Exports (International Agreements)

Sir Harmar Nicholls: asked the President of the Board of Trade what international agreements affecting exports have been amended in recent years with the agreement of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Erroll: I understand that my hon. Friend has in mind the international agreements relating to the use of tax concessions and other financial aids to export. Changes designed to strengthen the international rules against artificial aids to exports have been made both in O.E.E.C. and G.A.T.T. The E.F.T.A. Convention also includes similar provisions. The most important changes were those introduced with the agreement of the United Kingdom Government, during 1960.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in this instance I have not in mind only tax concessions? Could he tell the House whether or not at any time there has been an amendment of an international agreement of any sort, not only those covering tax concessions?

Mr. Erroll: My hon. Friend's supplementary question goes so much wider than his original Question that I should like to see it on the Order Paper.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I think that my Question is quite clear. It refers to international agreements and does not specify any particular sort of agreement.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCIENCE

Strontium 90 (Children's Bones)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science if he will give the latest information available to him regarding the content of strontium 90 in children's bones.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Science (Mr. Denzil Freeth): The latest information available regarding the content of strontium 90 in children's bones is contained in the Medical Research Council's Monitoring Report No. 1, published in December, 1960.

Mr. Allaun: Does not that Report show that, despite assurances that the level would fall following the suspension of tests three years ago, it was still rising and, in the case of one child, was dangerously near the 10 strontium unit level? Is it not surprising that the Agricultural Research Council's Report, a few weeks ago, showed that it depended not so much on the rate of deposit as on the total accumulation?

Mr. Freeth: I think that the encouraging fact which emerged from the Report of the Agricultural Research Council was that the amount of strontium 90 in milk was becoming lower during the twelve months ended June last than in the previous twelve months. That is a trend which we all hope is continuing.

Marine Nuclear Propulsion

Mr. Peart: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science what are his Departmental responsibilities for research into marine nuclear propulsion.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: My noble Friend has responsibilities arising from the statutory power of the Atomic Energy Authority to undertake research into any matters connected with atomic energy, including marine nuclear propulsion.

Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that we are behind other countries in this field? Three years ago studies were initiated and five firms submitted tenders. Why is there this delay? Is it not because the Minister of Transport has failed to give a decision? If so, will the Parliamentary Secretary insist that his hon. Friend will jerk the Minister


of Transport into some action? We are lagging behind the Soviet Union, Western Germany and the United States of America.

Mr. Freeth: The Atomic Energy Authority, for whose programme alone, of course, my hon. Friend is responsible, is at the moment engaged on a programme of research and development studies of reactor types thought most likely to lead to competitive marine propulsion systems. Questions about a British nuclear-powered ship, as the hon. Member knows, should be addressed to the Minister of Transport.

British Space Programme

Mr. Gower: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science if, in view of recent developments in Russia and the United States of America, he will re consider the possibility of instituting an independent British space programme.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: Decisions on the nature and scale of our future space research effort must await the outcome of current discussions with other countries on the possible development of a satellite launcher based on Blue Streak

Mr. Gower: While we must obviously consider carefully whether we can afford expenditure of this kind, should we not also consider whether we can afford not to have a space programme and lose possible by-products of research on this subject?

Mr. Freeth: We have, in fact, a space programme, a programme of scientific research experiments intended to complement the efforts of other countries in this field.

Mr. Peart: When are we likely to get a statement on the European agreement?

Mr. Freeth: We are at present in discussion with the German and other Governments concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF WORKS

Battle Abbey Stonework (Maintenance)

Mr. Parker: asked the Minister of Works what steps he is proposing to take to maintain adequately the surviving stonework of Battle Abbey.

The Minister of Works (Lord John Hope): I am not responsible for maintaining Battle Abbey, which is privately owned. However, I am always willing to give advice to owners if they ask me to do so.

Mr. Godman Irvine: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that Battle is a long way from the Dagenham constituency and that the hon. Member for Rye is quite capable of making any representations which are necessary?

Lord John Hope: My answer would have been exactly the same whichever hon. Member had asked the Question.

Earl Lloyd George (Statue)

Sir G. Nicholson: asked the Minister of Works if he will make a statement about the proposed statue of Earl Lloyd George.

Lord John Hope: Yes, Sir. On the recommendation of the Committee, of which my hon. Friend is Chairman, I am appointing Mr. Uli Nimptsch as the sculptor for the statue.
Circumstances have made it necessary for the Committee to meet many times in the last few years and I should like to thank them and my hon. Friend for the care and patience with which they have carried out their work.

Sir G. Nicholson: I am sure that the Committee will be most grateful, as I am, to my right hon. Friend for that Answer. It was not an easy decision for there were several sculptors apparently of equal merit. The Committee was very sorry for the disappointment caused to those who were not selected.

Richmond Park (Accidents)

Mr. A. Royle: asked the Minister of Works if he will give the figures of deer killed by motor vehicles in Richmond Park after dark and in daylight for the first four months after the speed limit was increased and the later opening during the winter months was introduced, and comparative figures for the same period for the three previous years.

Lord John Hope: With permission, I will circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the information:

The speed limit was increased on 4th August, 1960, and the Park opened to traffic after dusk one month later. The figures of known casualties to deer are:


August
None


September
None


October
Three


November
Four


December
Four

In addition, in the three months October-December four collisions with deer were reported but no injured deer was found.

No figures are available for the previous years, but the number of casualties is thought to be small.

Mr. A. Royle: asked the Minister of Works if he will give the figures of road accidents in Richmond Park for the first four months after the speed limit was increased to 30 miles-per-hour, with separate figures for injured and killed, and comparable figures for the three previous years.

Lord John Hope: I will, with permission, give the detailed figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT. In the four months after the speed limit was increased, there were only five accidents, of which three concerned bicycles only. Pedestrians were not involved in any of the accidents at all, and no one was killed.

Mr. Royle: Is my hon. Friend aware that many people living in Richmond are concerned about his intentions with regard to the Park? Will he give me an assurance that he has no intention, while he holds his present office, of widening the roads, installing traffic lights, installing "Keep Left" signs and other safety paraphernalia which we find on the public highway today?

Lord John Hope: Yes, I can give that assurance. Some feeling has been irresponsibly stirred up locally. It is based on false figures and imaginary prospects and, therefore, upon unwarranted anxieties.
Following are the detailed figures:
In the four months from the 4th August, 1960, when the speed limit was increased, the figures were:

5 accidents, 6 injured

In the comparable period of the three previous years they were:


1957
1 accident,
1 injured


1958
1 accident,
1 injured


1959
2 accidents,
3 injured

Royal Palaces (Expenditure)

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Minister of Works how many letters or other communications he has received concerning the recently announced increases in expenditure on Royal palaces; and how many of the letters support, and how many condemn, such increases.

Lord John Hope: I have received two letters. One was critical of one item in the Estimates. The purport of the other was obscure.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that kind of Answer will not get him very far? Is he aware that I have sent him 112 letters, 103 of which support the view that I take and only nine support the proposal that he is making? Does he think that it is a civilised priority that £50,000 should be spent on 1A, Kensington Palace when hundreds of thousands of people are living in slum conditions?

Lord John Hope: Considering all that the hon. Member has been saying about this matter, I should not have thought that just over 100 letters meant very much one way or the other. Indeed, as he himself has said, some of those letters he sent me were critical of himself, such as that which began with the words:
Better for you if you left the Queen alone.

Mr. Hamilton: Why did the Minister, in his original Answer, give inaccurate information? [Interruption.] Further, can he say why at this time £50,000 should be spent on one house when the Government are saying that they seek to provide National Assistance for people who need it most?

Lord John Hope: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I do not know which Question we are on. I understood that we were on Question No. 39, which is about letters which I have received, or are we on the next Question? I could not hear above all the shouting.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) was asking a further supplementary question to Question No. 39.

Lord John Hope: The answer to that part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question which I heard is that my original answer was not inaccurate.

Mr. Hamilton: But the right hon. Gentleman had 112 letters from me.

IMMIGRATION FROM THE WEST INDIES

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Prime Minister what consultation with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers took place at the recent conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers and during his recent visit to the West Indies on the control of immigration into the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I would not wish, in general, to add to the agreed communiqués issued after meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers. But the Government of the West Indies were informed that the control of immigration would not be discussed at the last Conference.
As regards my talks in the West Indies, I would refer my hon. Friend to the Answers which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. C. Osborne) and the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) on 18th April.

Mr. Lipton: Is it not clear that while the Government are dithering on this issue more and more people will want to come to this country before the vague threat of a ban on immigration is finally imposed? Ought not the Government to make a statement on their policy in the matter without delay?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I think that it would be a mistake to settle an issue of this kind without very grave consideration.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Prime Minister whether he is in a position to make a statement on his visit to the United States of America.

The Prime Minister: I do not feel able to make any statement enlarging upon the joint communiqué issued by President Kennedy and myself after our meeting in the United States and what I said in the House on my return on 13th April.
I have answered a number of Questions arising out of points mentioned in the communiqué, but I do not think it would be proper to go beyond this.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been a curious dearth of information about his activities since his return and that this is not really up to his established reputation as a publicist? Can he tell us whether he is suffering from shock, or is merely tired?

Mr. Nabarro: Very poor.

The Prime Minister: It is in accordance with the rules of these meetings, of which a great number take place—and very sensible it is—that communiqués are issued and statements may be made relating to or explaining the communiqués, but not statements at large.

FREE TRADE AREA AND COMMON MARKET

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of his conversations with President Kennedy, he will undertake a new initiative to resolve the differences between the Free Trade Area and the Common Market.

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Prime Minister whether he will invite the Prime Ministers of the member countries of the European Economic Community to join him in examining the possibilities of British entry to the European Economic Community and of closer association between the members of the European Free Trade Area and of the European Economic Community.

Mr. Grimond: asked the Prime Minister what steps he is taking, as a result of his talks with President Kennedy, to negotiate the entry of Britain into the Common Market.

The Prime Minister: I do not consider that this is a problem to be tackled by formal discussion at the level of Prime Ministers at this stage. We are actively engaged in seeking a solution of the differences between the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Community.
I was encouraged by my exchange of views with President Kennedy and we certainly shall not slacken our efforts. The problems are not simple. We have to reconcile the interests of our own


agricultural industry, our fellow members of the Commonwealth and our partners in the European Free Trade Association.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his Boston speech was one of the most obscure speeches about integration by a Prime Minister since Mr. Ramsay Macdonald? Could he say precisely what he meant by "integration"?

The Prime Minister: I do not think I used that word.

Mr. Wyatt: Is it not clear that the danger to Britain grows daily by our not joining the Common Market? Is it not also clear that a great change of policy has taken place since the Prime Minister's conversations with President Kennedy? Would it not be a good opportunity, when France is in such great trouble as she is today, to make clear to her that we stand very firmly with her and that we seek to encourage her by making a gesture, by initiating talks, to show our interest in the Common Market?

The Prime Minister: I should not have thought that this was a very good moment to try to initiate very detailed negotiations.
We must not over-simplify the problem—I do not think that most people do—by talking of joining the Common Market like joining a club, paying the subscription, and that is all there is to it. It is a very difficult, complicated matter. We have very great interests to consider, in honour and duty—our obligations to the Commonwealth, which date from very long-standing arrangements, our obligations to our own agriculture, and, of course, our obligations to our partners in E.F.T.A. I have always felt that we should pursue, at least for the time being, the kind of informal discussions which are going on, because, as I have previously said in the House, I should be very unhappy if formal negotiations were started which led to no result. That would have a very bad effect in Europe as a whole.

Mr. Grimond: Would not the Prime Minister agree that the first step before anyone joins a club is for the would-be member to make up his mind whether he wants to join the club or not? After that, he may be black-balled, or find the

conditions unacceptable. That is the first step. Have the Government taken it? As the Prime Minister was saying in America that the split in Europe is extremely serious, does he not realise that the people primarily responsible for it are the British Government?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I think that we all recognise that derogations or special arrangements would have to be made if we are to keep our honour and obligations. The problem is: can they be reconciled with the institutions and the operation of the Common Market under the Rome Treaty? It is not an easy problem. I admit that it is of immense importance. I do not think that we ought to rush it. I do not think that we ought to ask the country to take a decision until the whole of the scheme, in the light of other movements which may be made to co-ordinate the efforts of the free world, can be considered as a whole.

Mr. Nabarro: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that British industrialists in the last few years, in the face of all the difficulties to which he has referred, have not been standing still and have been meeting the situation by investing British funds in the Common Market countries, which is at least as good as exporting from this country to the Common Market countries?

The Prime Minister: I appreciate that there are advantages and dangers, but I think that this confirms how difficult the problem is. I have never disguised this. I think that it is one of the most difficult we have. I still feel that the approach that we are making is on the right lines. I might add, since it was mentioned in the communiqué, that I felt that with this advance with the new American Administration they would be prepared to accept what would be a greater degree of discrimination which would follow the merging of the Six and the Seven because of the general advantages in world stability. That is a big change, and it may help.

Mr. Gaitskell: I recognise the complexities of this problem and the need to reconcile, as the Prime Minister has rightly said, the points of view of the Commonwealth, E.F.T.A., ourselves and the rest of Europe. Would the right hon. Gentleman say a little more about


the procedure which he thinks should be followed in this matter? Is he contemplating that there should simply be a continuation of detailed technical negotiations on individual products, which do not appear to be getting very far, or does he contemplate some rather broader approach by which, for instance, we and our partners of E.F.T.A. might agree to accept the principles of the Rome Treaty while making it plain that we must negotiate particular issues, such as, in our case, free entry for Commonwealth products?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; that is a possible approach. There are, of course, three obligations. There is the obligation to enter into a single agricultural system for Europe. That has not gone very far yet in the Rome Treaty. There are advantages in going in early and perhaps guiding in the way we would want. It is a great difficulty. There are also the Commonwealth obligation and the E.F.T.A. one. I do not want to say anything here which would injure what I hope we may be able to achieve.
Frankly, I have thought that there were two aspects to this—economic technical problems to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, and something rather different, whether there is really the will to bring this about. I have felt that if there is, and if that could be arranged on the political basis, somehow or other we would find a way through the difficulties.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I take it from that that the right hon. Gentleman contemplates direct negotiations with the French Government on this second question of the political implications and what he calls the will for us to join together?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir; not necessarily immediately, and certainly not at this moment. I think that it has to be cleared up at the top level whether there is a chance of making an arrangement on this kind of basis, and then we should proceed to what would be the very long and complicated negotiation on the

details. I will not go further than that. I appreciate that there are different views, but I know that the House as a whole realises the importance to this country and the whole free world of the right approach to the matter in the right way and at the right time.

Mr. H. Wilson: While it is clear that after these Washington discussions and before very long fundamental decisions will have to be taken, is the Prime Minister aware that many of us will welcome the statement that he has made that Her Majesty's Government intend to proceed with this matter with very great care, so that the right decision can be taken, and that we particularly welcome what he has said about the safeguarding of the three interests which he has mentioned? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that it is the intention of the Government to proceed only in agreement with our partners in the Commonwealth and in E.F.T.A., and that in any final solution that may be reached the economic interests of those countries which, for one reason or another, cannot join the Common Market will be fully safeguarded?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; all those considerations have to be borne in mind. Might I put it this way? I do not believe that all this could be brought about perhaps with a purpose which might lie even further beyond extending Europe to a still wider sphere without some losses and without somebody being hurt somewhere. Of course, nothing can ever be done without that happening. The question is: is the theme large enough and are the gains big enough for all the countries concerned to show that it is worth doing and that it ought to proceed? That is the kind of political decision that will ultimately have to be made by all the Governments concerned.

NEW MEMBERS SWORN

John Robertson, esquire, for Paisley.

William Thomas Williams, esquire, for Warrington.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS [17th April]

Resolutions reported.

[For particulars of Resolutions, see OFFICIAL REPORT 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c.823–39.]

Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith on each Resolution,

pursuant to Standing Order No. 86 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions).

First to Fifth Resolutions agreed to.

Sixth Resolution—Vehicles excise duty—read a Second time.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes 303, Noes 204.

Division No. 143.]
AYES
[3.35 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Dalkeith, Earl of
Holland, Philip


Aitken, W. T.
Dance, James
Hollingworth, John


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John


Allason, James
Deeds, W. F.
Hopkins, Alan


Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian(Preston, N.)
de Ferranti, Basil
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia


Arbuthnot, John
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.
Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Drayson, G. B.
Howard, John (Southampton, Test)


Atkins, Humphrey
Duncan, Sir James
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John


Balniel, Lord
Duthie, Sir William
Hughes-Young, Michael


Barber, Anthony
Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David
Hulbert, Sir Norman


Barlow, Sir John
Eden, John
Hurd, Sir Anthony


Barter, John
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Batsford, Brian
Emery, Peter
Iremonger, T. L.


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Bell, Ronald
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Jackson, John


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Farr, John
James, David


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos &amp; Fhm)
Fell, Anthony
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Berkeley, Humphry
Finlay, Graeme
Jennings, J. C.


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)
Fisher, Nigel
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)


Bidgood, John C.
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Biggs-Davison, John
Foster, John
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey


Bingham, R. M.
Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford &amp; Stone)
Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Joseph, Sir Keith


Bishop, F. P.
Freeth, Denzil
Kaberry, Sir Donald


Black, Sir Cyril
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.


Bossom, Clive
Gammans, Lady
Kerr, Sir Hamilton


Bourne-Arton, A.
Gardner, Edward
Kimball, Marcus


Box, Donald
George, J. C. (Pollock)
Kitson, Timothy


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
Gibson-Watt, David
Langford-Holt, J.


Boyle, Sir Edward
Glover, Sir Douglas
Leather, E. H. C.


Braine, Bernard
Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
Leavey, J. A.


Brewis, John
Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
Leburn, Gilmour


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Goodhart, Philip
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Goodhew, Victor
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)


Brooman-White, R.
Gough, Frederick
Lilley, F. J. P.


Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Gower, Raymond
Lindsay, Martin


Bryan, Paul
Grant, Rt. Hon. William
Linstead, Sir Hugh


Buck, Antony
Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.
Litchfield, Capt. John


Bullard, Denys
Green, Alan
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)


Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Gresham Cooke, R.
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)


Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)
Grimston, Sir Robert
Longbottom, Charles


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Longden, Gilbert


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Gurden, Harold
Loveys, Walter H.


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn


Cary, Sir Robert
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Channon, H. P. G.
Hare, Rt. Hon. John
McAdden, Stephen


Chataway, Christopher
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
MacArthur, Ian


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy(Bute&amp;N. Ayrs.)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
McLean, Neil (Inverness)


Cleaver, Leonard
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)


Collard, Richard
Hastings, Stephen
MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)


Cooper, A. E.
Hay, John
McMaster, Stanley R.


Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold(Bromley)


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)


Cordle, John
Henderson-Stewart, Sir James
Maddan, Martin


Corfield, F. V.
Hendry, Forbes
Maginnis, John E.


Costain, A. P.
Hiley, Joseph
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.


Coulson, J. M.
Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Markham, Major Sir Frank


Craddock, Sir Beresford
Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
Marlowe, Anthony


Critchley, Julian
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Marshall, Douglas


Crowder, F. P.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Marten, Neil


Cunningham, Knox
Hocking, Phllip N.
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)




Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Profumo, Rt. Hon. John
Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)


Mawby, Ray
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Teeling, William


Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Pym, Francis
Temple, John M.


Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Mills, Stratton
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Montgomery, Fergus
Rees, Hugh
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr)
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter


Morgan, William
Rippon, Geoffrey
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Morrison, John
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Robertson, Sir David
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Nabarro, Gerald
Robson Brown, Sir William
Turner, Colin


Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
Roots, William
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Noble, Michael
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Vane, W. M. F.


Nugent, Sir Richard
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John


Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Seymour, Leslie
Vickers, Miss Joan


Ormsby Gore, Rt. Hon. D.
Sharples, Richard
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dannis


Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Shaw, M.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Orr-Ewing, C. Ian
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn
Walder, David


Osborne, Cyril (Louth)
Skeet, T. H. H.
Walker, Peter


Page, John (Harrow, West)
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntr'd &amp; Chiswick)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek


Page, Graham (Crosby)
Smithers, Peter
Ward, Dame Irene


Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Partridge, E.
Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Spearman, Sir Alexander
Whitelaw, William


Percival, Ian
Speir, Rupert
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Peyton, John
Stanley, Hon. Richard
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Stevens, Geoffrey
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Pike, Miss Mervyn
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Wise, A. R.


Pilkington, Sir Richard
Storey, Sir Samuel
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Pitman, I. J.
Studholme, Sir Henry
Woodnutt, Mark


Pitt, Miss Edith
Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)
Woollam, John


Pott, Percivall
Sumner, Donald (Orpington)
Worsley, Marcus


Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch
Talbot, John E.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Price, David (Eastleigh)
Tapsell, Peter



Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Prior, J. M. L.
Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)
Mr. Edward Wakefield and




Colonel J. H. Harrison.




NOES


Abse, Leo
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
Hunter, A. E.


Ainsley, William
Ede, Rt. Hon. C.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Edelman, Maurice
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Jeger, George


Bacon, Miss Alice
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)


Baird, John
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Evans, Albert
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Benson, Sir George
Finch, Harold
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)


Blackburn, F.
Fletcher, Eric
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)


Blyton, William
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Kelley, Richard


Boardman, H.
Forman, J. C.
Kenyon, Clifford


Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.


Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Lawson, George


Bowles, Frank
Galpern, Sir Myer
Ledger, Ron


Boyden, James
George, LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn)
Lee, Frederick (Newton)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Ginsburg, David
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)


Brockway, A. Fenner
Gooch, E. G.
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Gourlay, Harry
Lipton, Marcus


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Grey, Charles
Logan, David


Callaghan, James
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Loughlin, Charles


Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Griffiths, W. (Exchange)
McCann, John


Chapman, Donald
Grimond, J.
MacColl, James


Chetwynd, George
Gunter, Ray
McInnes, James


Collick, Percy
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
McKay, John (Wallsend)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
McPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)


Cronin, John
Hannan, William
Manuel, A. C.


Crosland, Anthony
Hart, Mrs. Judith
Mapp, Charles


Crossman, R. H. S.
Healey, Denis
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Herbison, Miss Margaret
Marsh, Richard


Darling, George
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Mason, Roy


Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Mayhew, Christopher


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hilton, A. V.
Mellish, R. J.


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Holman, Percy
Mendelson, J. J.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Holt, Arthur
Milne, Edward J.


Deer, George
Houghton, Douglas
Mitchison, G. R.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Howell, Charles A. (B'ham, Perry Bar)
Moody, A. S.


Delargy, Hugh
Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)
Morris, John


Dempsey, James
Hoy, James H.
Mort, D. L.


Diamond, John
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Moyle, Arthur


Donnelly, Desmond
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Mulley, Frederick


Driberg, Tom
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Neal, Harold




Oliver, G. H.
Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Oswald, Thomas
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Wade, Donald


Padley, W. E.
Skeffington, Arthur
Wainwright, Edwin


Paget, R. T.
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Warbey, William


Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)
Watkins, Tudor


Pargiter, G. A.
Small, William
Weitzman, David


Parker, John
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Parkin, B. T.
Snow, Julian
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Sorensen, R. W.
White, Mrs. Eirene


Peart, Frederick
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Whitlock, William


Pentland, Norman
Spriggs, Leslie
Wigg, George


Plummer, Sir Leslie
Steele, Thomas
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Prentice, R. E.
Stonehouse, John
Willey, Frederick


Probert, Arthur
Stones, William
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Proctor, W. T.
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)
Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)


Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Stross, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Williams, T. W. (Warrington)


Randall, Harry
Swain, Thomas
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Rankin, John
Swingler, Stephen
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Redhead, E. C.
Sylvester, George
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Reid, William
Symonds, J. B.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Rhodes, H.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Woof, Robert


Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Wyatt, Woodrow


Robertson, J. (Paisley)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)



Ross, William
Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Thornton, Ernest
Mr. Short and Mr. Irving.

Seventh to Twentieth Resolutions agreed to.

Orders of the Day — FINANCE [MONEY]

Resolution reported,

That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session relating to finance, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses of the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, or any other Government Department, incurred for the purposes of provisions of that Act relating to the payment of surcharges by employers, including any increase in the sums payable by the said Minister out of such moneys under section nineteen of the Post Office Act, 1961, and to authorise the payment out of the Consolidated Fund—

(a) of such sum (not exceeding two hundred thousand pounds) for the redemption of the Ottoman Guaranteed Loan of 1855 as

may be required to make up any deficiency in the assets available for that purpose in the 1855 Ottoman Guaranteed Loan Investment Account of the National Debt Commissioners;

(b) of the expenses of the Treasury in connection with the redemption of the Loan;

(c) of any increase in the money which may become so payable by virtue of any provision of the said Act applying to the Loan the provisions of section five of the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Act, 1955 (which relates to unclaimed moneys in respect of Government stock).

Resolution read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution:—

The House divided: Ayes 299, Noes 197.

Division No. 144.
AYES
3.50 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Bourne-Arton, A.
Cole, Norman


Aitken, W. T.
Box, Donald
Collard, Richard


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
Cooper, A. E.


Allason, James
Boyle, Sir Edward
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill


Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian (Preston, N.)
Braine, Bernard
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.


Arbuthnot, John
Brewis, John
Cordle, John


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Corfield, F. V.


Atkins, Humphrey
Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Costain, A. P.


Balniel, Lord
Brooman-White, R.
Coulson, J. M.


Barber, Anthony
Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Craddock, Sir Beresford


Barlow, Sir John
Bryan, Paul
Critchley, Julian


Barter, John
Buck, Antony
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.


Batsford, Brian
Bullard, Denys
Crowder, F. P.


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Cunningham, Knox


Bell, Ronald
Burden, F. A.
Dalkeith, Earl of


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)
Dance, James


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos &amp; Fhm)
Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry


Berkeley, Humphry
Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Deedes, W. F.


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
de Ferranti, Basil


Bidgood, John C.
Cary, Sir Robert
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.


Biggs-Davison, John
Channon, H. P. G.
Drayson, G. B.


Bingham, R. M.
Chataway, Christopher
Duncan, Sir James


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Duthie, Sir William


Bishop, F. P.
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David


Black, Sir Cyril
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)


Bossom, Clive
Cleaver, Leonard
Emery, Peter




Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Langford-Holt, J.
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Leather, E. H. C.
Pym, Francis


Farr, John
Leavey, J. A.
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Finlay, Graeme
Leburn, Gilmour
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


Fisher, Nigel
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Rees, Hugh


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Foster, John
Lilley, F. J. P.
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas


Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford &amp; Stone)
Linstead, Sir Hugh
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Litchfield, Capt. John
Robertson, Sir David


Freeth, Denzil
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Robson Brown, Sir William


Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Gammans, Lady
Longbottom, Charles
Roots, William


Gardner, Edward
Longden, Gilbert
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


George, J. C. (Pollok)
Loveys, Walter H.
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)


Gibson-Watt, David
Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby
Seymour, Leslie


Glover, Sir Douglas
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn
Sharples, Richard


Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Shaw, M.


Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
McAdden, Stephen
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn


Goodhart, Philip
McArthur, Ian
Skeet, T. H. H.


Goodhew, Victor
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd &amp; Chiswick)


Gough, Frederick
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy(Bute&amp;N. Ayrs.)
Smithers, Peter


Gower, Raymond
McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)


Grant, Rt. Hon. William
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher


Green, Alan
MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Gresham Cooke, R.
McMaster, Stanley R.
Speir, Rupert


Grimston, Sir Robert
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold(Bromley)
Stanley, Hon. Richard


Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Stevens, Geoffrey


Gurden, Harold
Madden, Martin
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Hall, John (Wycombe)
MagInnis, John E.
Storey, Sir Samuel


Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Studholme, Sir Henry


Hare, Rt. Hon. John
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Marlowe, Anthony
Sumner, Donald (Orpington)


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest
Talbot, John E.


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Marshall, Douglas
Tapsell, Peter


Harvie Anderson, Miss
Marten, Neil
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Hastings, Stephen
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)


Hay, John
Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)


Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Mawby, Ray
Teeling, William


Henderson, John (Cathoart)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Temple, John M.


Henderson-Stewart, Sir James
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Hendry, Forbes
Mills, Stratton
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Hiley, Joseph
Montgomery, Fergus
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr)
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter


Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Morgan, William
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Morrison, John
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Hirst, Geoffrey
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Hocking, Philip N.
Nabarro, Gerald
Turner, Colin


Holland, Philip
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Hollingworth, John
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Noble, Michael
Vane, W. M. F.


Hopkins, Alan
Nugent, Sir Richard
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John


Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Vickers, Miss Joan


Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Ormsby Gore, Rt. Hon. D.
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis


Howard, John (Southampton, Test)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John
Orr-Ewing, C. Ian
Walder, David


Hughes-Young, Michael
Osborne, Cyril (Louth)
Walker, Peter


Hulbert, Sir Norman
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon, Sir Derek


Hurd, Sir Anthony
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Watts, James


Iremonger, T. L.
Partridge, E.
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Whitelaw, William


Jackson, John
Percival, Ian
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Peyton, John
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Jennings, J. C.
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Wise, A. R.


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Pilkington, Sir Richard
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Pitman, I. J.
Woodnutt, Mark


Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Pitt, Miss Edith
Woollam, John


Joseph, Sir Keith
Pott, Percivall
Worsley, Marcus


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Price, David (Eastleigh)



Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Kimball, Marcus
Prior, J. M. L.
Mr. Edward Wakefield and


Kitson, Timothy
Profumo, Rt. Hon. John
Colonel J. H. Harrison.




NOES


Abse, Leo
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)


Ainsley, William
Benson, Sir George
Bowles, Frank


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Blackburn, F.
Boyden, James


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Blyton, William
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Boardman, H.
Brockway, A. Fenner


Baird, John
Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.




Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Rankin, John


Butter, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Hunter, A. E.
Redhead, E, C.


Callaghan, James
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Reid, William


Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Rhodes, H.


Chapman, Donald
Jeger, George
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Chetwynd, George
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, s.)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Collick, Percy
Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield)
Robertson, J. (Paisley)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Cronin, John
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Ross, William


Crossman, R. H. S.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Kelley, Richard
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Darling, George
Kenyon, Clifford
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Skeffington, Arthur


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lawson, George
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Ledger, Ron
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Small, William


Deer, George
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Snow, Julian


Dempsey, James
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Sorensen, R. W.


Diamond, John
Lipton, Marcus
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Dodds, Norman
Logan, David
Spriggs, Leslie


Donnelly, Desmond
Loughlin, Charles
Steele, Thomas


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
McCann, John
Stonehouse, John


Ede, Rt. Hon. C.
MacColl, James
Stones, William


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Stross, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Evans, Albert
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Swain, Thomas


Finch, Harold
Manuel, A. C.
Swingler, Stephen


Fletcher, Eric
Mapp, Charles
Sylvester, George


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Marquand, Rt. Hon, H. A.
Symonds, J. B.


Forman, J. C.
Marsh, Richard
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mason, Roy
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Mayhew, Christopher
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Galpern, Sir Myer
Mellish, R. J.
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


George, Lady MeganLloyd(Crmrthn)
Mendelson, J. J.
Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)


Ginsburg, David
Milne, Edward J.
Thornton, Ernest


Gooch, E. G.
Mitchison, G. R.
Tomney, Frank


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Moody, A. S.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Gourlay, Harry
Morris, John
Wade, Donald


Grey, Charles
Mort, D. L.
Wainwright, Edwin


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Moyle, Arthur
Warbey, William


Griffiths, W. (Exchange)
Mulley, Frederick
Watkins, Tudor


Grimond, J.
Neal, Harold
Weitzman, David


Gunter, Ray
Oliver, G. H.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Oswald, Thomas
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Padley, W. E.
White, Mrs. Eirene


Hannan, William
Paget, R. T.
Wigg, George


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Healey, Denis
Pargiter, G. A.
Willey, Frederick


Herbison, Miss Margaret
Parker, John
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Parkin, B. T.
Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)


Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Williams, T. W. (Warrington)


Hilton, A. V.
Peart, Frederick
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Holman, Percy
Pentland, Norman
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Holt, Arthur
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Houghton, Douglas
Prentice, R. E.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Howell, Charles A. (B'ham, Perry Bar)
Probert, Arthur
Woof, Robert


Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)
Proctor, W. T.
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Hoy, James H.
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry



Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Randall, Harry
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

Mr. Short and Mr. Irving.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS

[20th April]

Resolution reported,

AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

That it is expedient to amend the law with respect to the national debt and the public revenue and to make further provision in connection with finance, so, however, that this Resolution shall not extend to making amendments of the enactments relating to purchase tax so as to give relief from tax, other than amendments making the same provision for chargeable goods of whatever description or for all goods to which any of the several rates of tax at present applies.

Resolution read a Second time.

Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 86 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions), and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution and upon the other Resolutions reported from the Committee of Ways and Means and the Resolution reported from the Committee on Finance [Money] and agreed to this day, and upon the Resolution [20th April] relating to Finance Bill (Procedure) (Isle of Man Act, 1958), by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir E. Boyle, and Mr. Barber.

Orders of the Day — FINANCE

Bill to grant certain duties, to alter other duties, and to amend the law relating to the National Debt and the Public Revenue, and to make further provision in connection with Finance, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 112.]

Orders of the Day — DEPARTMENT OF TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.2 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The object of this Bill is to give effect to the intention of the Government, announced in this House by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 21st March, to create a new Government Department to be called the Department of Technical Co-operation. This new Department will deal with the provision of aid to overseas countries in the form of what is known as technical assistance, and it is being created to bring together certain responsibilities and functions which are at present divided amongst the three overseas Departments—the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, and the Colonial Office.
Up to the present time, requests for technical assistance have been dealt with by one or other of these three Departments according to whether the requests have come from a foreign country, from one of the independent countries of the Commonwealth, or from one of our dependent territories. The Government's proposal is that such requests should in future be handled by the new Department, irrespective of the country from which they come.
Before I go into detail about the functions of the new Department, I think perhaps the House may like to have a short explanation why this Bill is being introduced by a Treasury Minister. I sincerely apologise to the House for the fact that I address them so often, and I think that many hon. Members will feel

rather like certain people felt about Hamlet's ghost—
What, has this thing appear'd again?
There are two reasons for this. First, the Treasury has a general responsibility for all matters relating to the machinery of Government; and second, one of the most important functions of the Treasury is to see that, within the necessary overall limits determined by the circumstances of our Budget and balance of payments, public money is spent prudently and with the right choice of priorities. I am quite confident that, from this point of view, a decision that all requests for technical assistance now dealt with in the overseas Departments should be handled by one Department will mark a definite advance.
The wide range of assistance given to overseas countries, under the general heading of "technical assistance," was described at some length in the White Paper (Command No. 1308) published last month. I do not think I can define technical assistance better than by quoting the definition given in paragraph (9) of the White Paper. According to this definition, technical assistance covers:
training in the United Kingdom and overseas, the provision of experts, administrators and other professional men and women; the provision of advisory technical and consultant services and expert missions, and the supply of equipment for training, demonstration, pilot schemes or surveys.
I think one can, without undue subtlety, draw a broad distinction between helping overseas countries with trained men and women, special equipment and so on, and helping them with the provision of capital aid. It is perfectly true that a capital project may include some element of technical assistance; and it is certainly true that technical assistance may quite often help to pave the way for the success of some major capital project, by means of a pilot scheme or by the expert assessment of the local resources that can be made available. Hon. Members will probably have read the interesting remarks in Mr. Andrew Shonfleld's book The Attack on World Poverty, in which he lays stress on the concept of pre-investment before some major scheme of capital aid is undertaken. In the same way, a technical assistance scheme


may on occasion, if it is to fulfil its purpose, require equipment on a scale exceeding the normal provisions of this kind of aid. Nevertheless, I feel confident that there is usually, in practice, a pretty clear distinction to be drawn according to whether the object of the scheme in question is capital development, or whether it falls under one of the heads which I have already quoted from paragraph (9) of the White Paper.
So far as capital aid is concerned, I believe that our present procedures are adequate. I am talking now about the machinery and not about the scale of capital aid, which can be discussed during this debate. The point I was making is that our procedures regarding capital aid will not be affected by this Bill. I should like to make it absolutely plain to the House at the outset of the debate that the new Department of Technical Co-operation will not be responsible for the provision of capital. That will remain, as at present, with the overseas Departments. I think that is perfectly reasonable. Loans or grants to overseas Governments do not normally involve the United Kingdom Government in any close technical examination of the project or plan for which the money is to be spent. On the other hand, the mobilisation and application of our resources for technical assistance is a task of very considerable complexity, and requires the kind of co-operation which a unified Department can best provide.
Now I want to give the House some indication of the present size of our technical assistance effort. At the beginning of 1960, which is the last date for which figures are available, about 47,500 overseas students were receiving educational training in this country of some kind or another. About 2,000 of this total of 47,500 students held some form of United Kingdom scholarship. About 2,500 trainees have come to this country under Colombo Plan technical assistance arrangements since they started in 1951, and 380 British experts have been employed under the Colombo Plan in South and South-East Asia. I can remember very well when I was at the Ministry of Education visiting a technical college in the north of England and meeting there a pharmacologist who had just come back from working in Nepal under the Colombo Plan technical

assistance arrangements. Altogether, some 6,000 officers, covering the whole range of professionally qualified men and women, were recruited in this country to serve overseas Governments during the years 1955–60.
Some of this assistance, particularly in the educational field, is at present handled not by the overseas Departments but by the Ministry of Education, the British Council, the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, and certain other bodies. For the most part, where arrangements of this kind are working well there is no intention of disturbing them, although, naturally enough, there may be a need for some marginal adjustment of responsibility from time to time, and I hope, if I may say this respectfully to the House, that those adjustments will be made with the minimum of friction. In any event, most of the forms of aid which I have described have been provided in the past by the overseas Departments, and will be provided in the future by the new Department.
I should like to give some examples of the work which will be done by the new Department when it comes into being. One table in the White Paper of last March lists 36 different categories of experts whom we recruited last year for service in the United Kingdom's dependent territories. They ranged in alphabetical order from "administrators, architects, auditors" to "veterinary" and ended with a substantial category headed "miscellaneous" to include people who could not be classified even in that long list of 36 separate categories. The Government have found in practice that the business of recruiting a biologist, for example, is not such a different job whether he is to serve in Asia, Africa, or the Caribbean. The Government consider that the work of recruiting these specialists can be done more easily and efficiently if it is centralised in one Department.
I am sure that there is no need for me to emphasise to the House the importance of the work done by these experts. It is a great deal less spectacular than some other forms of overseas aid. Technical assistance does not easily catch the headlines in the same way as the damming of a great river or the founding of a new major industry in a territory. But, nevertheless, it will


often lay the foundation on which a sound project of capital investment is based, and it may very well provide the skill without which a major industrial problem may be unable to develop its full potential.

Mr. Leslie Hale: The hon. Gentleman continues to emphasise the word "technical" which is in the title of the Bill, and he quoted the definition from the White Paper. The Bill refers to social services. Are they primarily only to be ancillary to technical development? How, for example, will the problems of medicine, the vital problems of a veterinary service and of veterinary research into the problems of large areas of the continent, continue to be tackled?

Sir E. Boyle: That certainly would come within the ambit of the Bill. Clause 1 (1) speaks of technical assistance, and there is special mention in that context of assistance in the fields of economic development, administration, and the social services. I would say that obvious cases which one would consider to come within the ambit of the Bill are those concerning experts needed to advise in such things as the starting of a new industry, the provision of skilled administrators in every field, and under the heading of "social services" the provision of veterinary services would be most certainly included.
I was about to add when the hon. Member intervened that it seems to me that in the whole matter of economic development, whether of growth at home or abroad, there is always danger of putting too much emphasis on the spectacular. Putting in weight all along the line, sometimes in unspectacular ways, may have just as great an economic effect as those aspects of economic development that most easily attract public attention.
The United Kingdom has a long record of service overseas both in the public and private spheres, which dates back over several centuries and of which we as a country can justly be proud. Anyone reading the White Paper could hardly fail to be impressed by the size and authority of our effort. Nevertheless, the needs of emergent countries are becoming more urgent every year—I would say

almost every month—and the supply of qualified people available for service overseas is naturally limited. It is, therefore, of the highest importance that we should have the best possible arrangements both for selecting them and for using their abilities in the best directions.
Another important responsibility of the new Department is the administration of the scheme set out in the White Paper presented to Parliament last October by my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary for the continued employment of overseas officers. As the House will recall, this scheme is designed to help certain Governments to retain the services of overseas officials until local public services can be firmly established. It is expected to cost about £12 million a year, apart from compensation payments. This is not my own direct departmental responsibility, but I think, as all members of the Government think, that this is something of great importance from the point of view of the future of a great many countries and territories. I should, however, make it plain that the new Department will not be responsible for the transfer, promotion and discipline of the overseas service in dependent territories. That responsibility will remain with the Colonial Secretary.
Another part of the responsibilities of the new Department will be concerned with the technical assistance provided with the help of the United Kingdom through the United Nations Organisation, in particular the United Nations Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and Special Fund. The new Department will also take over the present work of the Technical Assistance Recruitment Unit of the Ministry of Labour, which recruits personnel in this country for service with the United Nations.
The Department will also deal with technical assistance under the Colombo Plan and under the newly-formed Special Commonwealth African Assistance Plan. It will be responsible on behalf of the United Kingdom for technical assistance matters discussed in the Development Assistance Group, and for any such discussions held in the new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Mr. Donald Chapman: Does that mean that when


a development plan for a dependent territory is to be drawn up, the new Department will be more involved in that task than the Colonial Office?

Sir E. Boyle: That is a difficult question to answer in advance of the new Department being set up. It is one of those questions which cannot be answered simply "Yes" or "No", but it is precisely the sort of issue which will arise and which we shall have to consider carefully on its merits when the new Department comes into being.
I apologise to the House for giving this catalogue, but it is difficult to be explicit on this matter and not at the same time be rather tedious. Among the other responsibilities of the Department will be the provision of technical assistance to a number of Middle East countries under the Central Treaty Organisation arrangements and also through the Middle East Development Division. The increasing importance of international co-ordination and the growth of what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister calls inter-dependence throughout the world are themselves among the strongest reasons for the creation of a new central Government Department.
In general—and I emphasise this to the House—the relations of the new Department with other Departments and organisations over matters of technical assistance will be the same as those of the overseas Departments hitherto. Where other Departments and organisations have specialised responsibilities in the field of technical assistance, these in general will be left unchanged. For example, as a former Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, I naturally have in mind those educational matters for which I used to bear a share of responsibility. In this respect the very valuable work of the British Council will retain its full importance, and the Ministry of Education will remain the Department responsible for Britain's contribution to the work of U.N.E.S.C.O.
I have already indicated that the creation of the new Department may well necessitate a number of marginal changes in other people's responsibilities; but it will be far easier to consider such matters in a practical way once the new Department has come into being and has started work.
Now I pass on to the place of the new Department within the central Government machine. The new Department will, as has already been announced, carry out its responsibilities within the general framework of the policies for which my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Secretary of State for the Colonies are responsible. The intention is that the new Department should be in charge of a Minister, to be known as the Secretary for Technical Co-operation, whose rank will be equivalent to that of a Minister of State. The permanent head of the Department, the chief civil servant, will be known as the Director-General, and his rank will be equivalent to that not of a Permanent Secretary but a Deputy Secretary in another Government Department.
The staff of the new Department is expected to number something over 1,000, but this will not mean, at any rate initially, the creation of more than at most a very few additional posts. It will mean the transfer to the new Department of posts from the existing overseas Departments and, broadly speaking, the transfer of equivalent numbers of staff. In so far as any new posts are created, either at home or overseas, the Government will certainly keep in mind the possibility of re-employing former members of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service with the right qualifications, and we certainly hope that the new Department will help to increase the opportunities for former members of the Service to be employed on technical assistance work.
The Government hope, subject to the approval of Parliament, to set up the new Department before the Summer Recess. Its main offices will be in part of Carlton House Terrace. Perhaps I might also remind the House that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already said that the Secretary for Technical Co-operation will be a Member of the House of Commons and he will, therefore, be available in this House to answer for the work and organisation of his Department.
I am sure, nonetheless, that the House, will agree with me when I say that some of the most important work of the Secretary for Technical Co-operation may well consist in visits overseas, both to


individual countries and as a British spokesman at international gatherings, and I am sure the House will gladly, so to speak, grant him leave of absence from time to time. Of course, it will be up to the usual channels to make any arrangements for answering Questions and so on if the Secretary is away.

Sir James Duncan: Could my hon. Friend explain who will be the Secretary's boss? Will he be directly under the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Sir E. Boyle: He will not have a boss in the sense that my hon. Friend means. This will be a Government Department on its own. The Secretary for Technical Co-operation will work within the broad framework of the policies for which the three Overseas Ministers are responsible, but he will be his own boss so far as the House of Commons is concerned, and it will be possible to put Questions down to him.

Sir J. Duncan: He will have direct access to the Prime Minister?

Sir E. Boyle: That is so.
Now I come to a matter which is naturally somewhat close to my own heart as Financial Secretary. The new Department will have a Vote of its own to cover both its establishment expenses and its expenditure on the provision of technical assistance, including the cost of the Overseas Service Aid Scheme. I would say to the House that on a provisional estimate, this Vote will be of the order of £30 million, including certain expenditure now financed out of Colonial Development and Welfare funds. But this £30 million will not represent new expenditure. As the Financial Memorandum to the Bill explains, this will be in place of corresponding expenditure by the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office, and the Bill, which is designed to authorise a plan of administrative reorganisation, does not involve, other than incidentally, any net increase. I will see to it that Estimates for the new Department, and revised Estimates for the three overseas Departments, are presented to the House as soon as possible.
Now I come to the Bill itself. Hon. Members will see that the Bill to give

effect to these provisions is a short one, and I should have thought in itself quite uncontroversial. Clause 1 provides for the creation of the new Department under the charge of a Minister with rank equivalent to that of a Minister of State, and for transferring to him the proposed functions. Later on the House, in the form of a Committee—not that this is anything to do with you, Mr. Speaker—will be asked to consider the question of the Minister's salary.
Clause 2 relates merely to the oath of allegiance. Clause 3 provides for the appointment of his staff and for the payment of the Department's expenses. The remaining Clauses in the Bill are all in the nature of consequential provisions.
I think it is fair to say that in Britain today there is more widespread interest in the needs of the under-developed countries than ever before. Whatever our views may be about the moral implications of an affluent society, and however much we may differ in this House in detail about the sort of society we wish to see, none of this can in any way lessen the significance for the whole of the human race of the fact that millions of ordinary wage-earners, in the advanced industrial countries of the West, have now achieved a standard of life and of opportunity which has hitherto been denied to all save a tiny fraction of humanity. What is more, this fact is becoming more and more widely known and understood, and its implications known and understood, in those parts of the world where the standard of living is still, for the overwhelming majority, only at the level of bare subsistence.
I commend the Bill to the House as a reflection of the importance which the Government attach to meeting rapidly and effectively the needs of the less developed countries for technical aid from the United Kingdom towards the furtherance of their social and economic progress.

4.26 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: I am sure that the whole House agrees not with the last couple of sentences in the Minister's speech, but with those generalisations that he made about the importance of world poverty today, the growing understanding of its nature and its size, and the difficulties that we


have to encounter if we are to overcome it.
There are three major problems confronting us and which call for an urgent solution. One is disarmament; the other concerns our relations with Africa, which we discussed last night; and the third is the problem of the dire poverty of two-thirds of the world's population. The Bill derives any significance that it possesses from its association with that grave problem.
Unfortunately, the gap between the more prosperous nations, comprising about one-third of the world's population, and the conditions of the remaining two-thirds of the world's population who are poor, is widening. It has not been closed by what has been done hitherto. Mr. Paul Hoffman, who knows as much about this subject as any man, who is certainly as well qualified as anyone to talk about it, having been the administrator of the Marshall Plan which set Europe on its feet after the war, and whose qualifications are unrivalled, has calculated that, in the last ten years, whereas the annual rate of income of the better-off nations has been increasing by 3 per cent., the annual growth of income in the 100 underdeveloped countries with which he particularly deals has been at the rate of only 1 per cent. While we are getting richer at the rate of 3 per cent. per year, they are improving their condition at the rate of only 1 per cent. per year. Therefore, though some progress has been made, the gap between us is widening all the time.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Lansdowne, stated on 22nd February that the average income today is the United States is £750 a year, that the average income per head of population in the United Kingdom is £360 a year, but that for over 50 underdeveloped countries the annual income per person is only £35. Many Commonwealth countries are included in the latter statistics. Two Commonwealth countries, in particular, are key countries in the battle against world poverty. One is Pakistan, which has only just managed to break even after the end of its first five-year plan, which, at the end of its first five years of attempted economic development, is no better or worse off than it was when it began. It is now setting out on another five-year plan,

aiming, this time, to increase its annual income per head by 2 per cent. For that objective, which we all hope and pray it will achieve, it needs foreign aid of £90 million a year.
The most serious problem of all arises in India, the largest of these great underdeveloped nations. Her hope was that her present plan, a third five-year plan, would enable her to reach at the end of it what is called the take-off stage or what is sometimes referred to as the break through, or of becoming self-propelled, whichever phrase we like to use. The hope was that at the end of the present five-year plan India would be in a position to generate sufficient capital from her own resources to continue to expand the annual income at a reasonable rate without recourse to overseas aid. Recent population calculations made in India suggest that the amount of aid required to achieve that highly desirable objective may have been seriously underestimated.
We have been told that, apart from the reduction in the sterling balance—and, after all, that is only the repayment of a debt which we owe to India for services rendered during the war—Great Britain's aid to India so far has totalled £80 million. Obviously, a more intensive effort now has to be made if India is to achieve the objective of take-off. In the face of this newly-discovered great increase in population, her total foreign exchange gap for the present plan is estimated at £1,482 million, but her request for overseas aid for this year from other countries, including our own, totals £228 million. In his ten-year plan, to which I refer particularly in speeches which I make in the country as the world ten-year plan for economic development, Mr. Hoffman estimates that there must be an increase over the ten years of £7,000 million over and above the present amount of Government aid to the 100 underdeveloped countries to which he refers.
I think that the House could have reasonably expected this afternoon some indication of the part which the Government intend this country should play in these big efforts. In his Budget statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated that there were many difficulties in the way and that our present balance of trade situation was such—if


I did not misunderstand him—that we would not be able to do this year all that we had set out to do, and almost certain that we should not be able to increase our effort. Most certainly, I cannot be making a mistake in interpreting the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Budget speech as indicating that we should fall short at the present rate of providing our fair quota of what this gigantic ten-year Hoffman plan calls for. We may fall short of what India wants in these difficult times and unless we can help her to make a success of her takeoff she may lose hope.
The Chancellor pointed out the need for a surplus on current account if we are to invest overseas. If we are to have this surplus, we must either increase exports or reduce imports or have a combination of the two. I agree that in present circumstances it is difficult to do this. I will not enter into controversial discussion on this point; that has been done on the Budget debate and can be done on the Finance Bill. We have given our reasons why the country is in this difficult position at present. Let us leave that aside and concentrate on this problem of aid for the underdeveloped areas.
Our resources do not match the needs of the moment. Surely that involves some assessment of priorities in what we do. If our total resources are less than the reasonable claims calculated by world experts, we must somehow devise a measure of determining which activity shall be given priority in what we are able to afford. The first paragraph in the White Paper, Cmnd. 1308, which was issued a short time ago and which is, of course, our main guide to the general purposes of the Bill, tells us that during 1960 Government aid for overseas development totalled about £150 million and private investment from this country to the underdeveloped areas totalled about £100 million, a round figure total of £250 million.
I am glad that we have had the figure for private investment broken down to a figure which applies to the underdeveloped countries. The previous figures given to us included private investment in countries such as Australia which, although physically underdeveloped, are not economically underdeveloped. We are told that this represents

doubling the effort in the last three years. That is good, but there was need for it. The Chancellor evidently doubts whether he can do much more, and we must, therefore, try to ensure that all this aid is used to the best advantage.
The £100 million of private investment counts just as much against our balance of payments as the £150 million of Government investment. It is all going for the same general purpose. If my argument is correct—and I feel that it is—that this is insufficient for the urgent needs of the moment, then both the public and the private investment must have the test of priority applied to them.
It was because of this major problem that I hoped that the Government would have come forward this afternoon with a Bill not merely for centralising under one control technical aid given to underdeveloped countries. I agree that there is a case for this and I am glad that it has been done. But many of us on this side of the House hoped that a Minister for Aid would be appointed, a Minister responsible for surveying the overall problem and determining the priorities. We need not discuss how he would indicate the priorities to private investors, but it will have to be done by someone if we are not to make a mess of this in the next few years.
Three years ago I suggested the establishment of machinery for co-ordinating aid, technical as well as capital, and bringing the Colonial Development Corporation well into the centre of the setup. The Corporation could become the Government spearhead in an effort of this kind, advising the Minister from the practical experience which is possesses in assessing what the priorities should be. Ministers are at some disadvantage in assessing these priorities since they are at some distance from the problem and are, naturally, apt to have proposals put to them piecemeal. This Minister for Aid, if only we had him, could also be responsible for a vigorous British Government initiative in trying to secure a greater degree of stability in the terms of trade. All who have studied the problem agree that this is a major problem in the provision of economic aid to underdeveloped countries. The noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, pointed out the other day what has been pointed out


before—that a 5 per cent. drop in the price of tropical products on which the underdeveloped countries mainly rely for their trade could wipe out the value in one year of all the aid given to them. Everyone who has been in these countries knows that this is a serious problem. I will not elaborate it, because I have given many examples in other debates.
If we could secure a greater stability in the terms on which we exchange our manufactured goods with these tropical products, through agreements not necessarily identical with but of the same type as the wheat, tin and sugar agreements, we should, at the same time, tend to stabilise the terms of trade in general, and we should not then encounter periodically, as we have every two or three years since the end of the war, the problem of an adverse balance of payments and a continual fluctuation in the balance of payments, with an accumulation of gold for a year or two followed by a year or two of financial stringency, credit squeeze and a reduction in our export trade.
A stabilisation of the terms of trade can be achieved. Proof of that lies in the agreements which have been made. More effort needs to be given to that objective, especially by this country which, with her world-wide trading activities, is more subject to the evil results of fluctuations in the terms of trade than is almost any other country.
Recently, proposals of this kind for setting up a Minister to discharge this sort of function about aid were made, I believe, from other sources, and on 22nd February the noble Lord, the Earl of Perth, said in another place:
The whole question is still under study, but I would say that whether it"—
and by that he means capital aid—
is included now or not, the great thing is to make a start."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 22nd February, 1961; Vol. 228, c.1088.]
I deduce from what the noble Lord said on 22nd February that the idea of having a Minister of Aid to co-ordinate all aid, to be responsible for priorities and perhaps to undertake a greater initiative in stabilising the terms of trade was under consideration by the Government and that it has been turned down.
I suspect that the representative of the Lord High Executioner is sitting on the

Government Front Bench. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury was not responsible, because he is not in the Cabinet, but he is present today as representative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I suspect that it was the Treasury which dashed the hopes of all of us who thought that our great effort in this third largest problem in the world today would be placed under a new, co-ordinated, active direction in the person of a member of the Cabinet.
The hon. Member said that he might have been mistaken this afternoon for a ghost. I think that he is classed for the rôle of midwife of a not tremendously impressive baby. It is because, in Lord Perth's words, that this may represent a start and may be the first trembling step towards co-ordinating at least one aspect of aid, and, because it may lead to other steps and to what we think is the only sensible way to run this business, that we welcome the Bill and hope that it will prove successful.
We are encouraged to believe that it will prove more important than it looks at first sight by the story which has appeared in reputable newspapers that Sir Andrew Cohen is to be appointed chief official. I suppose that he would hardly accept such a posit unless he thought the purpose worth while and unless he thought that it would contribute to the problems of the underdeveloped countries which he knows so well from his long experience, especially in the Colonial Territories and in the Colonial Office. If he is to be the head of the administration under the Minister it is a guarantee that the Department will be vigorously administered.
Is the status of the Minister to be as high as the hon. Member indicated and is he to have direct access to the Prime Minister? That statement took my breath way. It did not sound like the status of a Minister of State to me. If it is so, so much the better, because it means that he will be a more important Minister than I thought. I thought that he would have more of the status—because that is indicated elsewhere—of the Secretary for Overseas Trade during the Labour Government. That post has been raised to the status of Minister of State, but, even so, I am sure that that Minister has not direct


access with his problems to the Prime Minister; he is bound to go through the President of the Board of Trade.
I hope that we shall have a Minister who is fully alive to the importance of his post and to the importance of the problems, a section of which he will handle. I hope that he will seek to build this Department into an effective nucleus which one day will grow to be much bigger.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury gave many examples of the value of technical aid which is being and has been given. I fully agree with all that he said. Technical aid is highly important. Without technical aid, in many instances capital aid might be wasted. Technical aid prepares the ground for capital aid and capital aid is a preparation for the use of technical aid. Technical aid is necessary even when the capital has been put to work. The new steel mills in India are glad to use the services of steel workers, blast furnace workers and others from this country who have supervisory knowledge. Only recently I read of one such British worker being sent from Tees-side to undertake work of that kind. This is technical aid, as is the aid of soil specialists, agronomists and teachers. Thousands of different specialists can give of their best in this way, and their aid is invaluable if they approach the job in the right spirit.
When he has to find these experts in response to requests from overseas, the new Minister will be unable to find all he wants. I suspect that if this job is to go ahead as fast as it ought, he will have to determine priorities. He may have to say, "I have only two soil conservation experts on my hands, but I have four requests for such people". He will have to make a decision between the four applicants for the two men. I do not envy him the job of determining these priorities when no central priorities are laid down by a Minister with greater powers. I hope that, at any rate, he will try to obtain directives which will enable him to do his job in the most satisfactory and least wasteful way and that he will not just take it as a Post Office job, take the applications in the order in which they are received and supply the labour force in the order in which it is available.
The new Minister will have a difficult job, working for three Ministers—and it is undeniable that he will have three Ministers. He will be responsible to three Secretaries of State. There is a danger, but it is not so much that he will not have access to them, will not be able to make his ideas plain to them and to persuade them what they ought to do, or that they will not come to an agreement on what he is able to do with his scarce resources. The danger in this set-up is the danger of what the Civil Service calls consultation. If the new Minister is responsible to three other Ministers, the officials of those three other Ministers will all the time be concerned to see that the interests of their Departments are not interfered with and that any matter which might in the slightest degree trespass on one of these Departments is referred to it before a decision is made. I know that this is a danger, having worked both as a civil servant and as a Minister. I hope that the new Minister will be strongly supported by the Prime Minister and his colleagues in cutting out unnecessary consultation and that he will devise means whereby prompt decisions can be taken.
The new Minister will be responsible for the Overseas Civil Service provided for in the Overseas Service Act, which we passed a short time ago. As the Colonial Secretary remembers, I warmly welcomed the proposal which he put before the House when he made the statement which was eventually embodied in that Act. It is potentially an extremely valuable service for this country to render—to make available the service of experts who have worked overseas and to pay the overseas Government the difference between the reasonable remuneration of those people and what the overseas Government can afford to pay them. I supported that Bill when it was in the House and wish it well in its operation.
It is, however, disturbing to read the Answer given on 18th April last by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations to the hon. Lady the Member for Hornsey (Lady Gammans), who asked
…whether the arrangements recently made by Her Majesty's Government in the Overseas Service Act have been accepted by Nigeria…


The Answer was:
The Nigerian Federal Government and the Regional Governments decided after careful consideration that they did not wish to avail themselves of the arrangements offered by this scheme."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c.85.]
Why not? This is an occasion on which we would like an answer to that question. It may be an isolated example—I hope so—but Nigeria is one of the most important of these countries. It has a population of 45 million people, and its Northern Region, particularly, greatly needs economic development. How can it be that Nigeria was not willing to accept the provisions made under that Act? Could it have had something to do with the terms on which capital aid was offered to Nigeria?
What the Government have done is to say that the colonial development and welfare grants shall end, or shall be tapered off as quickly as possible after a Colonial Territory becomes independent, after which the territory becomes eligible for loans instead of grant. But the loans are now being offered at 6½ per cent. interest. Can it be that this very high rate of interest is resulting in a refusal of capital aid, and a consequent refusal of technical aid? We are entitled to know that.
I can imagine that the representative of the Treasury will say, "You talk of the necessity of priorities in the giving of aid. The way to secure that is through the rate of interest. That is the regulator of the market." With that, we shall never agree. In this particular sphere, above all, we believe that the aid should be offered on terms that are not prohibitive to the recipient country, and that the priority, if priority there is to be, should not be fixed by a high rate of interest and the aid given only to those who can pay that rate. The priority should be granted in accordance with the need for aid of the recipient country. I hope that before the debate ends some light will be thrown on what has actually happened in Nigeria.
I will not attempt to go into what the Financial Secretary called his catalogue of various agencies with which the new Minister will be in contact—I heard it only a moment or two before I had to speak—but I welcome the fact that the Minister will be in touch with the United Nations organisations working

in this field, and with the new Organisation for European Co-operation and Development.
I hope that nothing I have said about the importance of capital aid, about the inevitability of priorities, will cause anyone to think that in any way I underestimate the value of technical aid. Of course, it is highly valuable. As I have already said, at many points it goes with the provision of capital aid, and it is valuable even beyond that, because it assists in creating educated men and women who are able to use the tools of the twentieth century and it assists in building up the health of vigorous men and women who are able to work in the new undertakings that are provided.
Its value cannot be over emphasised. Nevertheless, do not let the emphasis on the importance of technical aid be in any way a substitute for making the maximum possible effort in the important fields of capital aid and the stabilisation of the terms of trade.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. John Tilney: Like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), I welcome the Bill as an event of the greatest possible importance. I found myself much in agreement with what the right hon. Gentleman said, especially when he referred to India. I read the leading article yesterday in the Financial Times, which pointed out that over the next five years India will require some £2,500 million. That is only one territory in a vast world where aid of every kind is needed. It gives one some idea of the immense task that faces the capital-producing countries, and I believe that it will not be overcome unless the capital-producing countries come together for that purpose. It is absolutely essential that, in some way, our economic policies should be co-ordinated.
Of the two points on which I wish particularly to dwell, the first is staff. I believe that the staffing of this new Department is to some extent tied up with the reform of the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, and the staff of the Foreign Service generally. We may utimately come to some form of common intake, but I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary say that in this new Department


there should be places for many of Her Majesty's overseas civil servants who are found to be redundant elsewhere.
My hon. Friend listed them alphabetically, and I am glad that, as a result, administrators come fairly high. For too long administrators working in some of the emergent countries have not been considered to be technicians, and we all know how difficult it is to run government unless those running it are sufficiently qualified. I believe that administrators count with those who deal with education, with medicine, building bridges or roads, and many of them may have to be seconded from either the home Civil Service or from local authorities.
I only hope that Her Majesty's Government will make it clear to local authorities and to others in charge of or responsible for the careers of these technicians that by going overseas they will not lose their place on the ladder of promotion. One constantly hears from doctors and from teachers of the fear that if they do take a job overseas they will, by the time they wish to come back, be forgotten, and will find it difficult even to get into a place at the same level at which they have left this country.
I should like to ask my hon. Friend whether he has given consideration to the way in which private enterprise in industry can help this technical aid, not only through the trade unions but through the directors of great companies, who might help by seconding their own technicians overseas for a year or two. I hope that this problem can be tackled jointly with various Commonwealth Governments. I should like to see it a joint venture not only in the management of the technical aid but in the provision of the technicians who will be employed in that service. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will be prepared to take technicians from every member of the Commonwealth so that there is the biggest possible interplay of ideas and skills between the various Commonwealth countries.
I turn now to what the right hon. Gentleman said about Nigeria. Many of us were very fearful during the Second Reading debate on the Overseas Service Bill that this very thing would happen. In my opinion, the aid, great as it is, has been produced too late. Many of us

have argued for many years about the need for this aid, and it has been fairly obvious that many emergent countries have been frightened that political dominance will be succeeded by economic dominance. In their independence, they are fearful that another kind of Briton will be provided, whose loyalty might be divided between the emergent country's Government and the United Kingdom Government. I believe that is feared, not only in Nigeria but in many of the about-to-be-independent territories.
This expenditure of £12 million—it was more before Nigeria opted out—is, of course, a magnificent gesture on behalf of this country, and I only hope that if, in a year or two, Nigeria has second thoughts we would be prepared to extend the aid that at the moment Nigeria has refused.
Then there is the method of the aid. The Financial Secretary likened himself to Hamlet's father's ghost, but I would like to remind him of the words of one about to die. Polonius said:
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
There is the danger that a lump sum payment by, say, this Government to another Government can be abrogated and be politically difficult in the years to come. If there is some other way in which the aid can be given, I hope that attention will be given to it.
Developing countries want not only the infrastructure—the roads, ports, railways, and bridges—but also want to keep up with the Joneses in steel mills and light industry. I believe that it is in that way that private enterprise, in particular, can help. I also think that the old view held in this country by some people that we should export the products of our industry in return for agricultural produce is completely wrong. One has only to see the immense expansion of trade between the United Kingdom and other industrialised countries, such as the United States of America.
It is a British interest that either alone—or, preferably, in partnership—we should establish new factories in emergent territories. I believe that to be a long-term British interest, and that those factories will come back time and time again to Britain for the plant necessary for the expansion they will probably


achieve, and for our general "know-how". I hope that the Treasury, when it fears balance-of-payment problems over money invested overseas, will consider that side of the question, because I think that it is there that private industry can help in a major way.
The trouble is that the historical events of the last decade have militated against that very thing—Abadan, Suez, the Congo, the events in Angola, or even in Rhodesia. Not very long ago, Sir Roy Welensky said that Africa stank in the City of London, and very few private investors, saving their capital, will today want to invest either in Africa or in Asia.
How have other countries tackled this problem? The United States of America, through the International Co-operation Administration has been able to ensure hundreds of millions of dollars of investments overseas. The Germans now have a similar scheme; so have the Swiss and the Japanese. At the moment, they are all bilateral schemes. I am told that the Common Market countries are now discussing this very subject and that within a few months they, too, will have some scheme of insurance for their industry overseas.
I believe that it is high time for the Commonwealth countries to get together and establish a similar scheme to insure against two main risks; the fear of nationalisation, with compensation only in an inconvertible currency, and the fear that it will not be possible to remit profits to this country. There are other fears, I agree—civil war, international war, creeping nationalisation—that is to say, discrimination between an externally-owned and an internally-owned concern. There is also the fear that the local currency will depreciate, between the formation of the overseas company and the turning of its cash into bricks and mortar and plant.
But one cannot insure against everything, and the two main risks, I repeat, are the fear of not being able to remit profits and that of nationalisation. If we could have some form of Commonwealth scheme of this kind, we would be able to get a lot of private capital investment to supplement, or to some extent even to take over from, Government loans. I urge the Financial Secretary to look into that possibility very

carefully. If only we could get that as a joint approach by the Commonwealth, great good would flow from it.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke of three main questions facing the world today. There is another which surpasses them all. It is that capitalism and the mixed economy are on trial, and that at the moment we are losing the cold war. We have to show the uncommitted countries that capitalism can produce the goods which are wanted in the world. It is absolute nonsense that millions should be unemployed in the United States of America when the production of the United States can be immensely greater than it is and when people all over the world are in need of that production.
The capitalist countries have to co-ordinate their economic policies. It is absolute nonsense that American aid cannot be as generous in future as in the past; for fear of a run on the dollar, and that we cannot invest in the Commonwealth as we would like, for fear of a run on the £, and that gold mounts in the vaults in Germany. We are all in this together, or should be. I hope that we shall tackle it together. There are signs that at last the international bankers are coming together. I hope that they will continue to do so and that they will be seen to do so.
Finally, I urge that whoever is appointed to this very responsible job should co-ordinate not only the aid of all the Commonwealth countries, but that of all the capital-producing countries of the Western world.

5.12 p.m.

Mr. Donald Chapman: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney), who has a great reputation for his deep knowledge of, and great sincerity in, these matters. I think that the whole House particularly appreciates the continuing interest which he has taken in British administrators overseas. I am not so warm in my welcome of the Bill as is the hon. Member. But for the fact that my intention might have been misunderstood, I would have tabled a reasoned Amendment to reject the Bill on the ground of its total inadequacy in present circumstances. I hope that the hon. Member for Wavertree will forgive me, but it is my intention to leave what


he said and to attack the Bill and the extent to which it is grossly and patently inadequate.
I agreed with the hon. Member when he spoke of the future of the mixed system—he called it capitalism and also talked about a mixed economy, but let us refer to it as the "free system"—and the extent to which the free system is on trial in the world today. If, in the British Commonwealth, we cannot show sustained economic growth, if we cannot make the British Commonwealth into a fighting example which will make it self-evident that Communism is unnecessary, then we shall fail in the next decade. And we have only the next decade in which to provide that fighting example.
To put it in a nutshell, we have to show to the world how the Commonwealth, this Commonwealth of free nations, can share its burdens, irrespective of colour and creed, and united, as the hon. Member would have it, in economic terms in freedom and liberty of action. We have a very short time in which to do that. The challenge of Communism is still growing. It is still eating in at the edge of the British Commonwealth and I shall later be talking of an area in which there is still a danger, not properly noticed in this country, and where we ought to be doing something economically to prevent that from happening.
I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) was right when he said that the Bill was only half the Measure it could have been if there had been a different agreement in the Cabinet. There could have been a Minister for Aid, as my right hon. Friend called it, and it is a shame and a grave mistake that we have been given only this half Measure instead of the total Measure the virtue of which my right hon. Friend expounded so brilliantly.
The whole problem is that it is impossible at this stage, effectively and with any sense of satisfying the needs of the Commonwealth, to divorce technical from capital aid. This should have been a Ministry which first did much of the technical work needed to assess the problems and to help to teach people how to solve them. Then the Ministry should have been able to show the

channels through which to satisfy legitimate demands for capital aid for dealing with the problems which the technical investigations had uncovered.
In the words of an administrator in one of our Colonies who wrote to me this week:
As regards the new Ministry, I fully agree with you that capital needs should be co-ordinated by the same group dealing with Technical Assistance.
This man is the head of an economic planning department in one of our former Colonies. He went on:
I believe that the most telling point here is that so often Technical Assistance means nothing more than defining and putting together what the needs are. All these needs invariably can only be met by capital. There is very little point in sending us technical assistance to study our ports if when the recommendations are made as to what should be done the source which should be providing the capital will be different, and the whole case has to be made all over again to this new source.
That is very true, but that is precisely what has to happen. We will have a Minister who will be co-ordinating on the periphery of the whole problem, and as soon as a great problem has to be met, he will have to say to the territory concerned, "Go away with the problem which we have uncovered and tout it round"—to put it into the vernacular—"to all the various agencies who may be able to give you capital assistance". That is precisely what is going on today, and that will not provide the example to the world of a Commonwealth developing in harmony and with its plans carefully laid for the next decade.
Let us consider the position of capital assistance at the moment. There are a number of ways in which developing territories, such as that which I have mentioned, can get capital help. First, there are the colonial development and welfare schemes, except—and one begins to make exceptions as soon as one starts to make a list—as soon as an area becomes independent. There are Commonwealth assistance loans—direct grants made by the Colonial Office. There is the Colonial Development Corporation, all hedged around by what it can and cannot do as soon as independence is in the offing. Incidentally, nobody seems to know just what it can and cannot do when that era approaches in any particular case: there is a vague phrase about it being able to carry on with projects


which it has been encouraging, but nobody knows precisely what that means or how far the Corporation can step over the boundaries of that definition.
Through our own subscriptions, there is help from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. There is our own participation in the Development Assistance Group and there is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. There are all these Government and international agencies. In private enterprise there is the Commonwealth Development Finance Company, which is specifically for helping some areas to get capital for projects which would not normally be satisfied directly by direct investment from particular firms. There is access to the London market for loans, and there are individual investment and development projects by individual firms.
In other words, once one gets to the point of seeing what capital needs for all sorts of problems in our developing Commonwealth there are, one finds eight or more agencies to which the area can turn, one by one, to ask for help in carrying out any project. It is ludicrous that we should go through the 1960s without a Minister helping and guiding the whole process and being available to help an individual territory to go to the best organisation for getting its money. That situation is intolerable.
I quote to the House what President Kennedy said when he took office and found what was the situation regarding foreign aid from the United States of America. He found just the sort of situation which exists in this country. Indeed, his document to Congress on foreign aid is one of the most inspiring documents which he has issued since he came into office. I quote one section in which he says:
For no objective supporter of foreign aid can be satisfied with the existing programme—actually a multiplicity of programmes. Bureaucratically fragmented, awkward and slow, its administration is diffused over a haphazard and irrational structure covering at least four departments and several other agencies. The programme is based on a series of legislative measures and administrative procedures conceived at different times and for different purposes, many of them now obsolete, inconsistent and unduly rigid and thus unsuited for our present needs and purposes. Its weaknesses have begun to undermine confidence in our effort both here and abroad.

The programme requires a highly professional skilled service, attracting substantial numbers of high calibre men and women capable of sensitive dealing with other governments, and with deep understanding of the process of economic development.
On the basis of that diagnosis, President Kennedy has proposed a Ministry of Aid for America—just what my right hon. Friend was advocating today for Britain. He has proposed a clean sweep of the board and a winding up of the agencies, co-ordinating the work under one central direction. If that is accepted by Congress, it will be an immense support to the job of the free world in the 1960s in properly helping development in the underdeveloped areas of the free world.
This is what should have been done in this Bill. President Kennedy hints as much when he says that other nations ought to be taking part in this work. He said:
This goal is in our grasp"—
the goal of preserving the free world—
if, and only if, the other industrialised nations now join us in developing with the recipients a set of commonly agreed criteria, a set of long-range goals, and a common undertaking to meet those goals, in which each nation's contribution is related to the contributions of others and to the precise needs of each less-developed nation. Our job, in its largest sense, is to create a new partnership between the northern and southern halves of the world, to which all free nations can contribute, in which each free nation must assume a responsibility proportional to its means.
This is a challenge to Brtain as well as to every industrialised nation to come in on the great experiment which President Kennedy wants to start—the experiment of doing this job on a proper scale. He clearly wants proper co-ordination and a feeling that it is at least on the basis of proper assessment of our capital needs, and our capital ability to provide help for those areas and then a determination to go forward with a proper plan to get the job done. It is against President Kennedy's diagnosis of the enormity of the problem that this Bill is so puny, hardly worth bringing before the House of Commons.
I shall give one example of the difficulty—to bring it down to brass tacks—which one has in helping with capital development some of these areas. As the House knows, I have been in Jamaica for some time. I came back determined to see what I could do to help with


some of that country's requirements. I came back determined to help with the next stage of economic development in Jamaica, a construction boom. There comes a stage in many development territories where the great spurt to economic development, "Operation boot strap" as it is called in some parts of the world, can be provided more by a construction boom than by anything else.
The big need in Jamaica today is for a housing programme, in view of the shortage of up to 100,000 housing units; and for a start Jamaica needs vast housing finance. She needs help for working class houses and mortgage finance for middle class houses. For the working class housing money Jamaica feels bound to go to America. She has felt that for some time, much though she appreciates the help from Britain. The opportunities of getting help on the scale required for working class houses in Jamaica were probably not here in this country. I leave that aside, because I do not claim to be fully briefed on it. But it is tragic that Jamaica has to rely on America, although I know, of course, of the great interest which America has in the area.
When I got interested in seeing whether we could get mortgage finance for middle class housing my first job was to write to the Colonial Secretary. He was courtesy itself. He managed to give me a list of the agencies, the private investment companies, insurance companies and banks which, on previous occasions, have provided money for the housing development in the Carribean.
My next stage is to see whether the Colonial Development Corporation would help with more money. It has helped with the first two middle class housing scheme in Jamaica. I also have to go to the insurance companies which have put money in so far and ask them if they had put in as much as they could in Jamaica, or if they could do more. Then I have to go to those who had not been in this market and say to them, "Your colleagues have been in this field. Do you think that you, as a big insurance company, could come in with a few hundred thousand pounds or a million?"
I am not complaining about having to do this. I am anxious to show how ridiculous it is that I have to do it and how ridiculous it is that a Commonwealth

which claims to be sharing its problems in this way has no proper agency in the mother country for helping to guide, counsel and channel these inquiries and needs into the particular places where they may be satisfied. It is intolerable that this should have to go on. Perhaps I made a mistake and should have gone straight to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) who, with his interest in this field, could have put me wise from the beginning.

Mr. A. P. Costain: The hon. Member has mentioned me. I am fascinated, as I always am, when he speaks as a great advocate of private enterprise. What does he now want? Does he want an enormous bank to act as a great dictator which says that money shall go to Jamaica or Rhodesia? What does he really want?

Mr. Chapman: Perhaps the hon. Member was not listening to me, or did not quite understand me. That may be my fault. I said that there was a need for a Ministry which having got the assessment of the problem should guide, counsel and advise the particular territory as to whether and where it was most likely to get the capital to satisfy its requirements. Just as a Minister would be co-ordinating technical assistance there should be a Ministry keeping a continual track of the capital needs, as well as of the opportunities for satisfying them, whether by private enterprise or by Government. It would be one Ministry to which these territories could come for advice and help in finding the right source of capital.
That is my plea. I do not believe that the Bill is satisfactory. I put it as mildly as that. I am as passionate a believer in the Commonwealth as any hon. Member in the House. I believe we have to make it the shining example for the rest of the world. I believe that we can show in this Commonwealth in the next ten years that black need not be against white; I am sure that we can show that the less developed nations of the world need not be jealous of us who, as they call it, have "cushioned living"; I believe that we can show in the example of the British Commonwealth that the former colonial peoples need not hate their previous imperial masters.
But this is all a problem of economic development—getting the right diagnosis and then satisfying the needs that are uncovered. I believe that this great aim, which so many of us talk about all the time in this House—the future development of the Commonwealth—is worth a better Bill than this. It would have been better, in my view, never to have introduced it than to have gone half-way and got stuck with the small Bill that we are debating today.

5.30 p.m.

Sir Charles Mott-Radclyffe: I have listened to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) with great interest. I think that he certainly had a point when he described how difficult it was to draw a clear dividing line between technical assistance provided under the Bill and capital investment overseas. So, also, I thought that the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) had a point when he, too, referred to the difficulty which he thought might arise for the new department in assessing priorities. I want to say a word about that later in a somewhat different context.
It is easy enough to accuse successive Governments, be they Conservative or Socialist in colour, of investing insufficient funds overseas in underdeveloped countries, but the real question we should ask ourselves is a question which we are not very anxious to ask, and certainly one we do not like to answer. It is: how much each and everyone of us as individuals or groups are prepared to forgo of the high standard of living we enjoy in this country to provide a somewhat better standard of living for the underdeveloped countries? Would it—I do not know—be a good General Election programme point for either party to say, "We will cut capital investment here, have fewer roads, fewer railways, fewer hospitals and less capital investment for this, that and the other so that more capital can be made available for investment overseas"? That is a question which neither side of the House—I do not blame it—is anxious to put and neither is very anxious to answer.
I do not think that anyone could possibly criticise the objective of the Bill. I suppose it is true that the advance in

technology and science during the last twenty years has been greater than in every comparable period of history. It is also true, as the hon. Member for Northfield and one of my hon. Friends pointed out, that the provision of technical "know-how" is a most important element, weapon, or call it what you like, in the cold war. It is very important indeed, and we would be most unwise to forget that.
I have never been one of those who think that we can be assumed to have discharged our responsibilities for newly independent countries merely by giving them the tools and symbols of Parliamentary democracy on their independence day. I do not think it enough to send out a high-powered delegation from this House to some particular independence day celebrations and to give them a Mace or Speaker's wig, and so on. Still less do I think that we can be surprised if hands which have never handled those Parliamentary symbols before handle them a great deal more roughly and clumsily than we handle them now after 800 years' experience of trial and error.
Our duty is not fully discharged in the granting of independence to a territory for which formerly we were responsible if we only give its peoples the tools and symbols of democracy; nor let us be surprised if they misuse them. We must also give them the technical "know-how" without which no independent State can survive in the world today for very long. Let us not forget that the desire for power is an extremely strong desire, and a very natural one. In that context do not let us forget either, that the key to power is industrial and technical "know-how".
The Bill sets up a new department. All new departments, when they are set up, are bound, with the best will in the world, to have teething troubles. That was the case with the Air Ministry, after the First World War, and with a number of wartime Departments during the Second World War, such as the Ministry of Supply and others. The post-war Commonwealth Relations Office grew up, so to speak, out of the old India Office and Dominions Office, and it is not an easy thing to set up a new department within the rigid ambit of Whitehall.
We wish the new Department every success, but it is up to all of us in this House to see that we do everything we can to ensure that when the new Department is set up it runs smoothly. We have to see that the wheels are oiled rather than clogged. The best way we can do that is to ensure that its field of activity and responsibility is as clearly defined as possible before the Department actually comes into operation.
I should have thought, listening to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary and reading the Bill, that there were a great many loose ends which ought to be tied up before the Bill goes on to the Statute Book. I want to refer to a number of what I consider to be loose ends in the hope that when my hon. Friend replies he will be able to tie up some of them. Then we can proceed to do more tying up in Committee. The purpose of the Bill, as the Financial Secretary said, is to set up a new Department to carry out the arrangements for furnishing countries outside the United Kingdom with technical assistance, including assistance in the sphere of economic development, administration and social services.
The first loose end which sticks out is in the field of education. I know that the Financial Secretary is very interested in this. To what extent is education included or excluded from the Bill within the context of the new Department? This is not quite so silly a question as it might appear—in other words, when does education cease to be education in the general sense and begin to be education in the technical sense? So long as it is education in the general sense it is clearly outside the scope of the new Ministry. When it is technical it is clearly within its responsibility. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made his statement on 21st March, about setting up a Department of technical assistance for certain countries overseas, he said:
Educational assistance through U.N.E.S.C.O. will still be a matter for the Ministry of Education. The work of the British Council in, for example, providing teachers of English will continue. All this, I agree, will have to be co-ordinated…"—OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1961; Vol. 637, c.215.]
There is certainly a great deal which will have to be co-ordinated.
That statement is clear as far as it goes, but leaves in the air all educational facilities other than the teaching of the English language. The Financial Secretary referred to the British Council. Many hon. Members know that it has been my good fortune to be associated with the British Council for some time. I know a little about some of the problems with which it has to deal. I should like to put to the Financial Secretary one or two problems in relation to the functions of the new Ministry to try to explain the kind of way in which I think its functions have to be rather carefully co-ordinated so that we do not get too much overlapping.
The British Council recruits a number of school teachers for Pakistan. It has been quite successful in that respect. By no means all those school teachers teach English. I cannot give details "off the cuff", but quite a number teach other subjects than the English language; they teach other subjects in English. How do these functions fit into the new Department of Technical Co-operation? Does the British Council continue to recruit school teachers for Pakistan as before, or insofar as certain subjects are technical, is that passed to the new Ministry?
Secondly, the Financial Secretary referred to the 47,000 students from overseas who every year at any given moment, broadly speaking, are in the United Kingdom. For the most part, they are doing scientific and technical courses.

Mr. Hale: Are they?

Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe: A very large proportion in a loose sense. They are not, of course, wholly the responsibility of the British Council. The British Council does what it can for many of them. Sometimes its officers meet the students when they arrive and help them to find accommodation. A few are accommodated in British Council hostels. Also, they are helped to find the right sort of technical courses, and so on.
In addition to those, there are another 6,000 what I might call advanced technicians. The Financial Secretary probably knows more about these than I do. They are advanced technicians in the sense that they are nearly all doctors, engineers and architects. They are here


for advanced courses of a far more highly technical nature than those taken by the 47,000. Where is it proposed to draw the line? Where does the field of responsibility of the new Department begin and end in respect of these students in their various categories?
The third question concerns the Vote. The Financial Secretary told the House that the new Department would have a separate Vote. The British Council funds come under the Votes of the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office. I take it that a proportion—I do not know what proportion—of the British Council funds will now come under the Vote of the Ministry of Technical Co-operation. Therefore, there will be a fourth Department sandwiched in with the other three. I make this point quite deliberately, because this is where I think we shall get into great difficulties unless we are careful. Every year one comes up against the perpetual dilemma of priorities. This is a point which was made by the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East.
I will describe to the Financial Secretary exactly what happens. The Foreign Office asks the British Council to step up activities in a certain country for perfectly good political reasons. That can be done within the financial ceiling only if the Council's activities are diminished in certain other countries within or without the Commonwealth. In extreme cases, where the budget had been very severely slashed in former years, it has meant going out of certain countries altogether.
Thus, one has this perpetual problem—one cannot help it—of deciding whether South-East Asia is more important that Africa, or whether Africa is more important than Latin America. It becomes a three-cornered contest between the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office over which is the right priority. Are we to have the new Department coming in to make this a four-cornered contest? If there is now to be a four-cornered contest on this appalling dilemma about priorities within our financial limits, I can only say that the results will be very much the same as attempts to square a circle.
Fourthly, I do not understand how the new Department will administer some

of these overseas service officers. In the same statement on 21st March, the Prime Minister said:
The new Department will, as one of its duties, administer the scheme, set out in the White Paper and presented to Parliament last October, for the continued employment of overseas officers. It will, however, not be responsible for the transfer, promotion and discipline of members of the Overseas Service in dependent territories; these matters will remain the responsibility of the Colonial Secretary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1961; Vol. 637, c.214.]
I have rarely read a sentence which describes more clearly administrative chaos. I do not see how the new Department can administer a scheme for the employment of overseas officers without being responsible for their discipline, transfer or promotion in the independent territories for which it is responsible and in the dependent territories for which apparently it is not. It seems to me to be an extraordinary situation. Before we go further, this point, which will lead to chaos, ought to be cleared up. The Financial Secretary, who has a very fertile brain and vivid imagination, has only to take an imaginary individual posted to Ghana or some such country and work out where the chain of responsibility for promotion and everything else lies to see for himself the absolute chaos which will result if that statement is put into effect.
The objectives of the Bill are admirable. I hope that sufficient thought has been given to the details. With regard to the composition of the new Department, I should like to know how many persons will be transferred from the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office.
I should say that there is very considerable urgency to get something done. The urgency comes from two directions. There are urgent demands—very naturally so—from many overseas countries, both newly independent and otherwise, for technical assistance of this kind. There is an equally urgent need to find employment for a large number of very able officers both from the Colonial Office itself and from former Colonial Territories who have become redundant through no fault of their own. I only hope that before the new Department actually begins to function some of the problems which I have ventured to suggest to my right hon. Friend as being of importance will be thought out so that


when the bits and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are finally put together to make a picture, the picture will be both attractive and intelligible. I support the Bill on Second Reading.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: I agree with the hon. Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe) in his interest in the bits and pieces. We are probably all looking forward to some elucidation of the details by means of which the Bill will actually work.
I thought the hon. Member was unduly pessimistic, however, about the substance of the Bill itself. Indeed, I rather fancied that he was so pessimistic that he appeared to me, in the matter of education, which is my chief interest in the Bill, too, to have misread the intention of the Bill and of the Prime Minister's remarks. I certainly hope that that is so, because if the question which he raises as to the scope of the education which is to be included in the ambit of this Department is a relevant one, then there is an abyss ahead of me which, frankly, I am proposing to ignore. I take it that both general education in the sense in which the hon. Member used the phrase and technical education in the sense in which he used the phrase will be included in the activities of the Department.

Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe: I certainly did not mean to give any impression of being pessimistic. What I was trying to do was to point to some of the directions in which I thought there would be a good deal of overlapping between the new Department and the old ones, and I wanted to get the sphere of responsibility quite clear, particularly in relation to the British Council. That was all.

Mr. MacPherson: Perhaps I should have said that the hon. Gentleman made me feel pessimistic and that it was not so much that he was pessimistic. I had certainly taken a much more hopeful view of the Bill than his questions suggested.
I agree with my hon. Friends about the questions that arise concerning the separation of capital provision and the provision of technical aid, but I am not

proposing to develop that line of argument, since other hon. Members have already done so. I agree also that there will be a problem about the relationship between policy-making and the carrying out of policy. This Department will be in a very difficult position. Again, I do not propose to follow up that aspect.
I wish to raise one or two more detailed questions—though they are broad in application—concerned in the main with education and training. I should like to know, for instance, a little more about the scope of the new Department. The three overseas Departments—the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, and the Foreign Office—will obviously be concerned. I understood, I hope correctly, from the Financial Secretary that the activities of the Ministry of Labour which are connected with recruiting for overseas would also be included in the new Department. I am not sure whether I heard him correctly, for he was very quick and short about that.
The Ministry of Labour acts, for instance, by way of being what I suppose one might call an agency for both the Board of Trade and the Commonwealth Relations Office in recruiting people. When the Board of Trade, for instance, wants to place people, it uses the Ministry of Labour's technical and scientific register as its method. I hope that the whole of that machinery in the Ministry of Labour will be included in the new Department. I hope that the new Advisory Committee on Facilities for Commonwealth Trainees in the United Kingdom, which has been set up under the Board of Trade, will also come under the new Department. The Department seems a natural home for it.
There is also the Colombo Plan itself. The Minister responsible in this House for that plan is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I wonder whether his interest in that Plan will remain or will be transferred to the new Department. In addition, there are various organisations. In his remarks a week or two ago, the Prime Minister referred to the Inter-Universities Council for Higher Education Overseas. Will this Council become responsible to the new Department? C.O.C.A.S.T., the Council for Overseas Colleges of Arts, Science and Technology, might well also come under the aegis of the new Department. What


about the Commonwealth Education Liaison Unit, for which the new Department would seem to be a natural and sensible home? There is need to clear up a number of these points in advance so that we may know the scope of the new Department.
When the Prime Minister made his statement, he concentrated on the necessity of having a single channel for requests for technical assistance. We all agree that that is important. In addition, however, there should be not only the same channel. It is desirable to have the same forms and methods applied in technical assistance. There are differences which, taken together, are probably unjustified, although there may have been good reason for them in specific cases. For example, I do not think that the Colonial Development and Welfare Corporation now pays or subsidises salaries. On the other hand, the payment or subsidisation of salaries is an essential part of other aspects of technical assistance. This kind of thing could well be founded on a uniform principle and the same kind of structure and methods used.
The question also arises to what extent the new Department will be an exploring or devising Department trying to seek out new methods and possibilities. To make a comparison with something on a bigger scale, when the International Bank began to deal with a similar problem, it devised new methods. It set up the system of making preliminary economic surveys, for example, to obtain information before proceeding with action. Will the new Department be free to go ahead with new ways of finding out and of doing things? It will need, for instance, the co-operation of industry and of various organisations in obtaining personnel for technical assistance. Will it be possible for the new Department to work out different methods of approach to industry and different principles and relationships with industry to achieve this? There have been difficulties about these things in the past.
I should like to deal particularly with education, largely as it affects training in this country. A good deal of attention has been given lately to the students who come over here for training. The number has been quoted more than once today and various questions arise which, I take it, will come within the

province of the new Department. In the first place, it is necessary to urge that, within the new Department, the people who are concerned with training and education given in this country should be the same people—interchangeable, perhaps—as those concerned with training and education overseas. We need a strong section concerned with that inside the new Department of Technical Co-operation and a Department especially strong—one does not need to argue the point; it is probably agreed—in the field of technical education.
The problem of getting firms to give industrial training in the United Kingdom has recently attracted a certain amount of attention and discussion. It is possible to be pessimistic about this. A high proportion of students who seek technical industrial training with firms in this country as part of their general education here manage to get it, but there are some who experience difficulty. A great many students who are here, for example, under their own steam financially, who are not sponsored by any organisation, have great difficulty in arranging industrial training during their university and college vacations and after graduation. They have nobody to speak for them. They must themselves approach the various firms, possibly through the Scientific and Technical Register of the Ministry of Labour, but they experience considerable difficulty. This applies particularly to Indians.
I understand that the great majority—probably 80 per cent. or so—of Indians who come to this country for education do so by means of their own finances. They are financially self-supporting. These are the people, who are not under the umbrella of an organisation or Government, who find the greatest difficulty in getting industrial firms to accept them for training. It would be unfortunate if we were to fail to give these people the training they need. We need a strong section in the new Department concerned with the industrial training aspect of education.
There again, we shall run into difficulties. Those excellent people with the experience and the "know-how" about education in the existing Departments and who may be transferred to the new Department will necessarily be people without full knowledge of this aspect because of the very fact that, in the


developing countries, this kind of facility is lacking or is almost non-existent. While their service may have included a great deal to do with ordinary school and formal education, it will necessarily not have included this aspect of industrial training.
It will be difficult to establish a strong department of industrial training, but it must be done. As the hon. Member for Windsor said, there must be a certain amount of seconding. There ought to be seconding from industry, if possible, in this sort of situation, and seconding also from other Departments. I suggest to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that it is not only the overseas Departments which have an interest and a concern in this matter. During the war, for example, the Service Departments did a good deal, mainly at the sub-professional level of the training of technicians and craftsmen, in training Indians and people from various developing territories inside the Commonwealth. It should not be impossible to recruit a number of the people who acquired that experience during the war to strengthen the new Department.
Therefore, as a preliminary step, we need a survey of the whole problem. Recently, the Denning Committee surveyed the needs for legal education in the Colonies and overseas. I suggest that an equally strong committee to explore the need for industrial training here and in the developing territories would not come amiss in this setting, because there is a lot that we need to learn in the way of knowledge of possible facilities, and in the way of the needs of the students.
Another activity of the new Department will need to be research. Many of the students who come to this country do not have great success in their courses. We are faced with the kind of situation which faced the Crowther Committee when it began examining the question of technical education. Figures were given to me about one technical institution, whose name I will not mention, where 56 overseas students were engaged on part one of the degree course in mechanical engineering. Forty-six of them passed in mathematics and smaller numbers passed in the various other subjects, until only 22 passed in engineering

drawing. The net result is that of those fifty-six students, only 11 passed part one of their degree course, with another 18 referred, to use the technical phrase, in one subject.
That is the kind of failure and wastage rate that the Crowther Committee was up against. It is a wastage of roughly the same proportions. It is the kind of thing which ought not to continue and in which one would hope that the new Department will feel the responsibility of making an inquiry. That is probably not the only inquiry that the new Department will find it necessary to undertake. A fairly strong research section will, no doubt be a necessity in the structure of the new Department.
Reference has been made to the activities of other nations, both within and outside the Commonwealth, in these matters. This, again, is something with which the new Department might well be concerned. If the collection together of the people concerned in the new Department facilities co-operation with other nations in dealing with the problem, that itself will be a step ahead. We have the situation that in the next few years, the numbers of students who will want education which their own countries cannot give them will be far more, even in our own family of nations, than we can ever hope to provide with education.
In the great wave of people leaving India and leaving territories in Africa and elsewhere in search of higher education, there are bound to be an increasing number of people who no matter what endeavours we make, cannot get their higher education in this country. Consequently, they will go to various other places, one of the most obvious of which is the United States. I should like to think that the creation of the new Department will make co-operation, the dovetailing of plans and the fitting together of programmes and the like, with the United States easier and more effective than has been the case so far.
To give one illustration of the sort of problem that arises and causes a certain amount of anxiety, I refer to the India, Ceylon and Pakistan group of students out of the 47,000 who have been quoted this afternoon. In the last five years, while the numbers of students coming here from other places and Colonies


have doubled and trebled the total number of students from India, Ceylon and Pakistan has not increased. There was an increase at one stage, but the figure has fallen back to the level of five years ago.
One asks whether that trend has been occurring elsewhere also. In the United States, however, although I do not have figures going very far back, there appears to be a general increase in the number of Indian students, and a considerable increase between 1958–59 and 1959–60 of, I believe, as much as about 20 per cent., whilst the figure for this country remains at about the same level.
What is the cause of that? Is there some failure on our part? Could we do better by co-operating in ways that we have not done so far with the United States? Could we correlate our courses or our offers to these people? Is there some way in which we can ensure that we do not fail this group of countries, two of which have been pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) as the two most important countries concerned in the need for aid?
There are other problems also that suggest the necessity of a close working co-operation with the United States. I am glad that that co-operation has been increasing lately. The Ashby Report has illustrated that, as did the conference at Princeton at the end of last year, but there are still instances of failure to dovetail our efforts, and I suggest—briefly, because I do not want to take more time—that we should consider co-operating not only specifically with the United States and, of course, specifically with our own Commonwealth family of countries like Canada, but also with the Scandinavian countries. I believe that, even if one leaves out of account for the moment the multilateral efforts which are being made by us and many other countries, we should still find that the Scandinavian countries might well offer a good deal of useful co-operation with us over and above their multilateral efforts and over and above our own, if we tried to find common ground with them. There is a very considerable problem here of co-operation, not multi-laterally but bilaterally, with whatever nations we think can help our efforts and

whatever nations can help in this direction. I hope that the new Department will make that kind of thing possible.
Like so many other hon. Members who have spoken, I feel that the creation of the new Department itself is a good thing, although in the circumstances a smaller thing than one might have expected; but I certainly give it my blessing.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Fisher: With the exception of the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson), who always makes most moderate and constructive speeches upon such subjects as this, I have been surprised by the very cool reception given by the Opposition to this imaginative Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) was most critical, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman), who speaks so charmingly that one does not always realise how caustic he is being, was quite violent in his attack upon it. It seems to me surprisingly ungracious. After all, one does not turn down a glass of perfectly good champagne because it does not happen to be a magnum.

Mr. Chapman: One might turn down a glass of cider.

Mr. Fisher: The hon. Member was talking of quantity rather than quality. He wanted much more in the glass. He did not complain so much of what was in it, and therefore my analogy was perfectly apt.
However, we can at least be thankful that we are no longer subject, as we used to be a few years ago, to violent attacks on colonialism. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) does not now even bother to be present on these occasions because there is not much to attack. Perhaps that is a tribute to the administration and policy of my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary in his great office. Those days are over, and even our friends abroad do not criticise us on these matters so much as before.

Sir E. Boyle: I do not know whether my hon. Friend was here or not last night, but it is unfortunately not true to


say that we always have in this House really balanced speeches on Commonwealth relations.

Mr. Fisher: I was present last night when the debate took place to which my hon. Friend refers, and I must say that if I had a criticism of some of the speeches made on that occasion it would have been directed to my own side of the House rather than the Opposition.
However, be that as it may, although people criticise the pace, just as hon. and right hon. Members opposite may still think that in some respects we are going a little too slowly, so other hon. and right hon. Members, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), who was in the Chamber earlier, may say that in certain parts of Africa at present we are going too fast. I do not agree with him. I think that the timing is probably about right. There would, however, be general agreement now, I think, on both sides of the House and in the country that we are at least travelling along the right road. We have trained and we are training the people of the more backward Commonwealth countries to manage their affairs. That part of our responsibility to them is being steadily discharged.
This Bill deals with a different but in some ways a really more difficult task: to try to help less fortunate countries to share in the prosperity which we ourselves now enjoy, to match the political progress which we have been making by economic advance. That is the most urgent and vital matter which we could be considering nowadays, because the industrial nations of the world are really quite rich, but the primary producing countries are relatively terribly poor. The worry about it, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East said, is that this disparity between the two is actually increasing. The generation beginning just before the last war has seen world trade in manufactured goods increase by about 60 per cent., while trade in raw materials has increased by only about 30 per cent. and in food by only 10 per cent. Most of the colonial and new Commonwealth countries are, of course, producers of food and raw materials. So the rich countries have been growing relatively richer and the poor countries relatively

poorer, and that sort of situation plays straight into the hands of the Communists.
We in this House, I suppose, much prefer trade to aid, but where trade has been inadequate to raise living standards we must supplement it by aid. I would agree very much with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) when in his excellent speech he pointed out that the emerging countries—I am quite sure he is right—are watching the two rival ideologies, capitalist and the Communist, to see which will give them the best chance of progress. This is one of the issues upon which we shall and must expect to be judged, and rightly.
Capitalism, as I think the Prime Minister said so well recently in a remarkable speech in Boston, must expand or expire. And it must think of new ways of helping the economically less fortunate and politically still uncommitted nations, or they will turn in despair to Russia.
This Bill, at any rate, does provide one of the ways in which we can help countries more backward than ourselves. It has already been done, so far as we can afford it, in the provision of capital, by direct loans and grants from the Treasury, by the C.D.C., where it is allowed to operate, by private investment and through various international agencies. This Bill is not concerned with that, but the form of aid with which it is concerned has been somewhat neglected in the past—the provision not of money but of men. It is true, of course, that most of the under-developed countries need money, but all of them need men. They need teachers, doctors, engineers and scientists; they need technicians of every conceivable kind; and, without that sort of help, much of the purely financial aid we make to them must inevitably be wasted.
I noticed that Prince Philip pointed out recently in a notable lecture:
It is quite useless for the more fortunate countries to offer their help in building dams, power stations and factories if the managers and engineers needed to operate them are not available.
That is so true. Of course, we have already done a good deal. We have provided both men and money under the Colombo Plan. We have sent out experts from the United Kingdom and


we have helped to train people locally. I should like to see some sort of plan on those lines developed for Africa.
We have also educated by now, I suppose, tens of thousands of Commonwealth students at training colleges and universities here in the United Kingdom, and we have spent a good deal of C.D.W. money in educating people in the Colonies themselves; not nearly enough, but still, we have done something; and all that has been helpful. But it is not enough and in the past it has not been properly co-ordinated. Different Government Departments have been working on the same lines, but they have been working independently, and this new Bill is mainly administrative and organisational in character in integrating this form of aid under one Department.
One of the new Department's important functions, as we know, is to administer the continued employment of overseas civil servants, recruited in this country at a cost of over £12 million a year. It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of this one service, particularly in Africa. The leaders of African opinion—of the Nationalist parties in various parts of Africa—men like Mr. Kenneth Kaunda in Northern Rhodesia, and Dr. Banda—have often told me, and I am sure that they mean it very sincerely, how dependent they are bound to be for a long time to come upon the help of the overseas civil servants, recruited from this country, in administering their territories for a considerable period after independence has been achieved.
I agree very much with the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East in his disappointment that Nigeria has not thought fit to take advantage of this offer, and, like him, I am rather wondering what is the reason for it. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree is not right. I hope that it is not that they think we intend economic domination in place of political domination. I am sure that that is totally wrong, and that the more we say and prove it to be wrong the better.
After all, we have one great asset which we can make available to the emerging African nations, and to others, and it is the skill and experience of our trained administrators—men who have dedicated their lives to this work, and whose contribution is quite unique and

will for a long time be quite indispensable. The most valuable export which we can send to the under-developed countries and the most valuable import which they can receive from us is men and women; but we must make it attractive for such people to say on in that service after the devolution of power, not only in regard to their security of employment but also their pension rights after retirement. This, I suppose, will be one of the main responsibilities of the new Department, but there are other ways of helping colonial and Commonwealth development which I hope will also be evolved by the new Department.
I hope the new Department will promote a closer liaison between the Government and the big industrial and commercial concerns which have been and are being established overseas. I hope that we shall try to help with the training of unskilled and semi-skilled labour in the Colonies, and so help to bring about the economic advancement of these people, which should and must coincide with their political progress.
I hope that the new Department may be helpful—by training the local populations in British skills and techniques—in diversifying the economies of these new countries, which are now so largely agricultural. I believe that no less than 56 per cent. of all the people of the Commonwealth are engaged in one industry—agriculture. If we can build up their industrial potential we shall not only be helping them, but we shall be providing our own economy with tremendous new opportunities. We shall be creating new purchasing power, new markets and new demands for manufactured goods, and, in raising the standard of living of these people, for whom we are still responsible, we shall also be giving a great new impetus to the improvement of our own living standards in the United Kingdom.
I was very glad when I heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in his statement to the House in March emphasise that the wide range of the new Department did not imply any change in the priority which would be accorded to Commonwealth countries. We may well wish to help foreign countries, particularly, I suppose, countries like the Sudan and Burma, which in the past were associated with the Commonwealth,


but we have plenty to do both in our own Colonial Territories, for which we are still directly responsible, and also in the new emerging Commonwealth countries, which are still linked to us but which can no longer be helped by the Colonial Development Corporation. I hope that the main beneficiaries of the new form of technical co-operation which will be developed will continue to be the Commonwealth countries.
This Commonwealth of ours is not at all a static association. It is changing in every generation, in every decade and in almost every year. Of the Commonwealth it is really true to say that the future is happening all the time. This Bill is one of the vehicles of change and the new Department it creates will be one of the agencies which will contribute, not only to the prosperity of the Commonwealth, but also to its cohesion. We are now reaching the point when the ties which bind us together are becoming rather tenuous. I hope the new Department will strengthen these ties and that it will be a uniting and unifying force in the Commonwealth. For beyond independence lies inter-dependence and partnership, partnership not only between the races in multi-racial States, but also between nations in a multi-racial Commonwealth.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: I agree with a very large part of the speech of the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) and indeed enthusiastically wtih some parts of it, but I would differ from him on one point which he made in the early part of his speech. He was the second hon. Member from the other side of the House who put this question in the context that there was a struggle going on between capitalism and the Communist world, and that capitalism had to justify itself by meeting the needs of the under-developed countries. I hope I may be permitted, as a social democrat, to say that I do not regard this struggle as one between capitalism and Communism, but as a struggle between democracy and Communism. I think that the democratic countries have in many ways to depart from the methods of capitalism if they are to win that struggle.
The very fact that this Bill is now in front of the House is a confession that

the private enterprise system on its own will not do this job. In the last century, and in the early part of this century, a great deal of capital was exported to the new countries like Australia, New Zealand, Argentine and elsewhere, where development was carried out entirely on a private enterprise basis. Owing to the fact that private capitalism is no longer so virile, it is necessary for Government action on a bigger scale to take effect. I do not want to pursue that sort of theoretical political argument, but I thought that I should make that point clear at the outset.

Mr. Tilney: Would not the hon. Member agree that capitalism would be just as virile if the conditions of security of investment were as good as they were in the last century?

Mr. Prentice: If history would stand still, old institutions might be able to stand still as well, but history is on the move in many ways.
I should like also to make the point that, although this cold war argument is a very important argument for doing this job of technical aid more effectively, I do not regard it as the first reason for doing so. The first reason for extending technical aid I believe to be a moral reason. I believe that it is something which should be on the conscience of every one of us that the gap is growing between the standard of living which we enjoy in the richer countries and the standards of life of something like two-thirds of the people of the world.
As we move on in the wealthier countries towards more and more technological advances and find the way to perform delicate operations on the human heart and to send spacemen into orbit round the world, we ought to remind ourselves that two-thirds of the human race are living in conditions of bare subsistence. This is the biggest moral challenge of our time. More people should say this more often and more clearly in public life.
I am sure that, if given the lead, more people in this country would respond to this appeal and would be prepared to make the greater sacrifices that will be required of us if we are to do this job on a big scale. The hon. Member for Windsor (Sir S. Mott-Radclyffe) said that no one seemed ready to ask for these sacrifices. It is a test of leadership that we should be


ready to ask for them. I should like to see the provisions of the Bill viewed as a means of putting the Government's and the people's will into effect in this respect.
This is in many ways a disappointing Bill. I agree with my hon. Friends that the new Minister should deal with capital aid as well as technical assistance. I should like to see that Minister one of Cabinet rank and to see him charged with the job of co-ordinating the whole of our effort in terms of aid of all kinds. I should like to see him become a diplomat in these matters so that, on behalf of this country, he would try to stimulate all the richer parts of the world to greater efforts to help under-developed countries. Accepting that this is a limited Measure—and I agree with the hon. Member for Surbiton that we should welcome what it contains while regretting that it does not go further—I should like to speak of some of the problems which I hope the new Minister will face. I urge that he and his Department should plan for a much bigger volume of technical assistance.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) quoted the recent analysis made by Mr. Paul Hoffman of the needs of the underdeveloped parts of the world. I should like to refer to some more details in that analysis. Mr. Hoffman pointed out that in the 1950s the under-developed parts of the world increased their resources to the extent of an average rise of 3 per cent. per annum in their national incomes. But that 3 per cent. had to be reckoned against the fact that in those countries there was an average rise of 2 per cent. per annum in population. Therefore, per capita, the rise in income was only about 1 per cent. per annum. He went on to say that if we set the target in the 1960s of merely doubling this rate of growth in income the richer countries would have to pour out additional aid which he estimated at 3 billion dollars per annum.
The European Economic Community also carried out a survey into this problem with the same aim of doubling the rate of growth in the 1960s. Its estimate was the even larger figure of 4 billion dollars per annum of aid from the richer countries to the under-developed countries. Whichever figure is correct, this is an enormous challenge. We should accept this target as a beginning and we and all the countries involved should

think in terms of a much bigger volume of aid than we are now giving
These figures include capital aid and technical assistance, and it is because these two are linked so closely together that I share the disappointment that both are not to be covered by the new Ministry. Accepting that they are not, it seems clear that the Minister will have to plan his technical assistance in relation to the movement of capital as well. We ought to consider the strategy of the West in the matter of capital aid for the under-developed parts of the world. It seems to me that the methods to be used, certainly by the United States Government who will be giving the lead to the new Development Aid Group, will be along the lines which have been developed by Mr. Rostow in his book Stages of Economic Growth. He is President Kennedy's leading adviser in this field.
We shall have an emphasis on the idea that certain countries have reached a stage of "being sent into orbit", as it has been described. Some hon. Members have used other metaphors. These countries have been described as "breaking through the sound barrier", and so on. The concept is of a State, through its own resources, going forward and increasing its standard of living at a fairly steady rate. It may be assumed that India, Mexico and Brazil have just about reached the threshold of that point and that, given a large injection of capital for the next few years, they will break through and "go into orbit" on their own.
Countries like Pakistan and many South American countries are a little behind and may reach that point in a year or two. Some of the countries of Africa are still further distant in the queue. It seems that Mr. Rostow's view, and therefore presumably that of the United States, is that there should be a deliberate policy of unfair shares in the distribution of economic aid from the West. There should be a deliberate choice of the countries which are nearly reaching the break-through stage and they should have most of the economic aid so that that aid shall do the greatest amount of good.
Although this concept is unfortunate in the sense that one would have liked a greater part of the aid to go to the


poorest countries, there is obviously much to be said for it in terms of results. If this is to be the pattern of events in the next few years, it does not follow, however, that technical assistance should be distributed in the same way—because it has to play a large part in bringing countries up to the point where they are ready for a large injection of capital aid. Technical aid may also be necessary later when the economic aid arrives. It is also needed by the poorest countries in making a beginning on the provision of education, public health services, the building of roads, and so on, which will start them on the road to eventual greater prosperity. It seems to me, therefore, that the Minister must be at least in close touch with the capital aid programme of this and other Western Governments even if he is not to have responsibility for this field.
I should like to see a bigger proportion of our technical assistance channelled through the United Nations. The preface to the White Paper on "Technical Assistance from the United Kingdom for Overseas Development" states that:
…United Kingdom Government assistance…in 1960 will have been in the region of £150 million of which £125 million will have been extended bilaterally, and £25 million multilaterally.
I am a multilateralist in this as well as in other respects, and I believe that the greater part of this aid should be given multilaterally.
The White Paper also states that of the £25 million only about £6 million went through the United Nations Technical Assistance Programme. One criticism which we must level not only at our programme but also at the programmes of most of the Western nations is that a large proportion of the aid given at the moment, which is in any case too small in total, is going to specially selected friends of the donor countries. It is true, for example, that a great deal of our aid is going not only to the Commonwealth but to the oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf and to places where we have a special interest. An enormous proportion of the aid from France is going to Algeria. Much of United States aid goes to the oil countries of the Middle East or to special American allies in the Far East—to

places like the Philippines and South Korea. While I am not suggesting that any of those countries should receive less, I say that if we are going to plan for an increase, a greater proportion should go through the United Nations and its agencies, for two reasons. First, it seems to me that the United Nations agencies are the right organisations for administering technical assistance. They are not necessarily the right organisations for administering capital aid, particularly if we accept the concept that it has to be concentrated on certain countries which are ready for it, because we cannot get that sort of decision made by the United Nations working under the system of "one nation one vote" in which inevitably all the nations are going to insist upon fair shares. But this difficulty does not occur in relation to technical assistance.
It is very important indeed that the man who goes to an under-developed country to work there should have the best possible relations with the people on the spot. If one takes into account the very natural feelings of newly-independent countries, the pride that they have in not accepting any sort of disguised version of colonialism, they are most likely to accept the presence of people who go under the aegis of the United Nations, an international organisation of which they themselves are members. That is a very important point and indicates the desirability of the job being done through the United Nations wherever possible.
Secondly, as a matter of deliberate foreign policy, this country ought to help to build up the United Nations by whatever methods are available. If we want that organisation to play a bigger part in world affairs and to become eventually some sort of federal world government, we must take every opportunity to build up its institutions wherever possible. I was disappointed to see that in the course of the recent General Assembly when the Assembly turned itself into a pledging conference on the expanded programme of capital assistance, it voted 86 million dollars, or something over £30 million, for the expanded assistance programme, which is 14 million dollars less than the target originally set by the 1957 Assembly. I think there ought to be a much bigger effort here and that


we ought at least to meet the targets which were originally set.
When the Financial Secretary moved the Second Reading of this Bill, he spoke of the relationship between this new Department and other existing Departments. I was a little disappointed at the way in which apparently the other Departments are still to continue their relations with the United Nations technical agencies appropriate to their work. The hon. Gentleman gave the example of education. I assume that the Ministry of Health, for example, will still have its relations with the World Health Organisation, the Ministry of Labour with the I.L.O., and so on. It seems to me that in recent years there has been far too restrictive an attitude by some of these Government Departments towards these agencies, far too much of an inclination to stick to the rigid formula of the British Government's share in the regular budget—perhaps too much Treasury share is involved—and a reluctance to enter into new projects.
There was, for instance, the failure of the British Government to make a contribution to the World Malaria Fund other than their regular contribution to the annual budget of the World Health Organisation. However, this is a matter which I hope to raise on the Adjournment tomorrow night, so I will not deal with it in any further detail.
There was the failure of the Ministry of Labour to make a special contribution to the Institute of Labour Studies which is being established under the I.L.O. We have been told that we should be satisfied with our regular contributions. But in fact a special endowment fund has been created and a large number of other countries are making special contributions to it. Not only relatively wealthy countries like France, the Netherlands and Western Germany but also relatively poor countries such as Chile, Mexico and Tunisia have announced that they are making contributions to the special fund. But the British Government will not do so. We should like to see a loosening up here.
Paragraph 89 of the White Paper refers to the question of training in United Kingdom industry. The Financial Secretary referred to this aspect of technical assistance. I must

say that I found this paragraph particularly disappointing. It begins by saying that the whole concept
is too broad a term about which to offer significant collective facts and figures.
It goes on to say that
some 9,000 people from overseas obtain experience in United Kingdom industry each year.
That does not seem to me to be a particularly large figure, especially when one considers that a part of that training is carried out by British firms which have subsidiaries overseas and are training people to go out and take responsibility there.
The hon. Gentleman said that under the Colombo Plan 2,500 people had come for training within industry. When one considers that this plan has been going for ten years, that it covers several countries with many hundreds of millions of people, this seems a most modest effort, and I hope that this is one aspect of technical assistance which can rapidly be improved. We are shortly to celebrate Commonwealth Technical Training Week, and I should have thought that one way of celebrating it in a practical way would be to initiate a Government survey, to ensure that the Government have a bigger grip of the problem and discuss with other Governments how people overseas can be brought to this country in larger numbers. This seems to me to be a relatively cheap and efficiently method of making a big impact on the economies of developing countries.
In passing, I should have thought also that one more criticism against the concept of a payroll tax is that it may discourage employers from taking on trainees of this kind. No doubt, this is one of the matters which will emerge on another occasion.
The last thing that I would suggest is that the new Minister should initiate something like a British Peace Corps similar to that which has been initiated by the President of the United States. This seems to me to be an immensely challenging concept which we ought to follow. It is a way to bring large numbers of young people into the service of technical assistance—not only people who are expert but people who can assist experts, because very often the work of an expert in an underdeveloped country can be much more


effective if he has assistants to work with him.
Also I believe that the experience of young people from different nations working together, is of tremendous importance in building up a spirit of internationalism which can be a factor towards world peace. It is now fourteen years since I went as a volunteer to work on the Youth Railway in Yugoslavia. I am still entitled to travel free between Samac and Sarajevo in Bosnia because of the modest contribution that I made in heaving stones and bricks around. I do not think that the foreign help to that project was a very large piece of technical assistance—certainly not my contribution—and when one speaks of a Peace Corps one thinks of something much more effective than that operation. Nevertheless I think that we all learned a tremendous amount from each other and we all became better world citizens as a result of the experience.
The Peace Corps should be organised by the Government. We all recognise the good work done by certain voluntary bodies in this field, but only the Government can give it the impetus that is needed. The American example should be followed here. These Peace Corps—British, American and the rest—should to a large extent be allowed to operate through the United States agencies.
Most of us have tended to talk about matters of detail, but I feel that we should regard this problem fundamentally as a challenge to the conscience of this country to do more. It is about 100 years ago that Abraham Lincoln said that the American nation could not survive "half-slave and half-free". It seems to me that the impact of modern science upon our world has made the world a much smaller place than the United States was when Abraham Lincoln used those words. Therefore, unless we accept that our biggest task is to liberate men and women from the slavery of abject poverty our civilised standards will not survive and we shall not deserve that they should survive.

6.51 p.m.

Mr. W. T. Aitken: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher), I am somewhat surprised at the lukewarm reception that this not only imaginative

but very timely Bill has had. I think that the Bill has immense possibilities which, if exploited, could range far beyond what we are thinking about in the terms of the White Paper.
I believe that in the next few years the main problem of aid to the underdeveloped countries will not be so much lack of capital as the inability of the under-developed countries to use the amount of capital which could be made available. For that reason, I believe that this new Department could tackle this matter at no great expense, from the point of view of looking at some of the problems we have to face in this revolution of rising expectations. Some of these problems have emerged only in very recent years.
I do not know how many hon. Members have read "The Ugly American", but I hope that those who have read that book will also read one which is coming out in the next few days, by the same author, called "A Nation of Sheep", because the theme of both these books is the complete and utter waste of money which certain types of direct financial aid or grants can be.
I believe that one task of this new Department will be to make the best possible use of the much greater degree of expertise that we have in this country in technical aid to overseas countries. There are not only the Colonial Office resources and the Commonwealth Relations Office resources, which will go on, but there is also the vast experience of private enterprises concerns which have worked overseas for many years and know all the difficulties. In some of the less sophisticated forms of aid, that is, both loans and direct grants, we often see the cart put before the horse.
A good example of that was told to me some years ago by Mahatma Gandhi, when he gave, at Chatham House, a most a glowing description of a new hospital that had been built in India, and which a great contribution from the British Government had made possible. He pointed out that the Indians would not go into it—they were much too frightened to go near the place—and he gave facts and figures to show how many millions of Indians could have been given elementary hygienic training for the same amount of money as had been


spent on a hospital which could deal with only a few hundred Indians a year.
Most of the people in the emerging countries for political reasons can only seek, in the form of aid, something which is spectacular. They want something which will make a tremendous impression on their supporters in the country, something that will provide them with the most concrete evidence possible that the country is going right ahead, when half the time what is needed is something on a much smaller scale, covering a much wider area.
I remember seeing, when I was in Nigeria and again in Malaya, people winnowing grain by the medieval method of throwing it into the air and letting the wind blow away the chaff. For a very few pounds one could buy a small hand-threshing machine which would do the job very much better than they are doing it at present. There are firms in this country already doing a great deal of research into simple machinery that can easily be repaired, if it breaks, mostly hand-powered.
Then again, we have a problem which is quite alien to the richer countries but not to the poorer countries. In the richer countries the driving force of all our economic system has been production, the desire to provide unlimited supplies of consumer and capital goods. A few years ago Mr. J. M. Keynes said in a speech, "Do not talk to me about over-production until the last Hottentot in the depths of the African jungle has a fleet of Rolls-Royce cars, at least six pairs of shoes, a top hat, and all the rest." That is not true. We have found out recently that in the poorer countries there is a quite different attitude of mind towards production. It is very hard indeed to get people to continue to work beyond a certain wage level, because they do not see any sense in it. They do not require any more. Their wants are not the wants of the richer communities.
No one has done effective research into how to persuade people, once they get higher wages, to continue to work and produce at the same rate. This is a characteristic in many parts of Africa and Asia. No one has yet been able to tell those countries how to overcome that particular problem so as to get the increased percentage of production every year which is necessary for them to

break through the barrier into a developing economy. If this new Ministry could provide the answers of giving aid to these under-developed countries without causing inflation and if British organisations could do research and provide the answers to these kind of problems, I think that it would have made a major contribution towards the growth of the under-developed territories, merely because it would have provided people in other countries able to provide aid with the answers on how to overcome the difficulties which make it impossible for many of the receiving countries to use even the capital that is at present available.
There is only one other point which I want to make. If this new Ministry can give a lead to those parts of the world which are willing and capable of providing substantial assistance to underdeveloped countries, then I should like to see it call in not just technical personnel but also to appeal to those various Commonwealth countries who are able to make contributions—not only contributions in the way of personnel, but also contributions in the form of planned aid, as was done by Commonwealth countries in the Colombo Plan.
It also seems to me that the fear of economic imperialism can be most effectively dealt with if, perhaps in a year or two, when the Ministry is in being and has had experience, we could persuade Canada, Australia and New Zealand to set up similar junior Ministries to co-operate with us in doing exactly the same thing. One of the curious features about the Commonwealth is that for many years, since we have had an independent Commonwealth, most of its leading countries have strenuously objected to any kind of permanent central organisation such as a permanent secretariat. On the other hand, the attitude is usually quite different when it comes to setting up something like the Colombo Plan which, after all, is a Commonwealth concept and is run by various people from all over the Commonwealth, and under which contributions are made into a common pool and run by a common pool of experts and administrators.
I believe that if this Ministry can do the research and find the answers which so many countries do not have at the moment, and if we can persuade the rest


of the Commonwealth, in conjunction with the United States, to set up similar organisations, then it will not only have done a splendid job but, with the comparatively small amount of money available, will have made a major contribution to aid under-developed countries.

7.3 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden: I would point out to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) that the unspectacular is perhaps one of the most difficult things to do these days. In science, miracles are performed almost daily, and people expect miracles in their political and social arrangements. These things do not happen. Indeed, most hon. Members on this side of the House, in giving our welcome to the Bill, think that the Bill is timid in stretching out to the future. I confess that I am disappointed that the status of the Minister and of the Permanent Secretary is not higher, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) that it is disappointing that the Bill does not include anything about economic aid.
May I confine my remarks to the detail of the Bill and ask some questions of the Financial Secretary on how it might work? I have heard in several Colonial Territories of very serious delays in the recruitment of staff, and I have also heard of very serious delays in obtaining equipment. It seems a little odd that in the present situation, when the shipping industry is crying out for trade, it is so difficult to get material shipped from West Africa to England and to get passages on the steamship lines. I feel that not enough attention has been devoted to communications between West Africa, for example, and England.
If the new Ministry is to suffer from the danger of consultation, it may well be that there will be even more delays in recruitment than at the moment, and there may be important delays in providing equipment. I urge upon all parties co-operating in this Ministry, and I particularly stress to the Financial Secretary, that very special attention should be given to the machinery dealing with recruitment and with the supply and forwarding of equipment, because

nothing causes more frustration and dismay in the field than to be short of staff and equipment after having made repeated applications for it.
When the Financial Secretary says that this Ministry will not be doing spectacular things, I hope that he does not rule out the Ministry having ideas. From time to time imaginative pieces of social work are undertaken. I refer to the training of Malayan teachers in England and the recent development of providing English teachers on vacation in Nigeria, for example. I hope that these bright ideas will run right through the new Ministry and that it will not only cultivate these bright ideas but will learn new techniques in getting them over to those people who might benefit from them.
Ofter an under-developed country is not quite sure about which are the things which it should do. If it is becoming independent, it is in a rather delicate relationship with this Government, and much attention therefore needs to be directed towards how to get ideas which are worked out in England, or in other parts of the Commonwealth, conveyed to newly developing countries in a way which they will accept.
This particularly applies to Sierra Leone in relation to the training of teachers. Sierra Leone is very short of teachers, but I have not heard of any particularly spectacular or inspiring scheme of ours to help Sierra Leone. I hope that we can adapt the Nigerian scheme to suit Sierra Leone and find more places in our own training colleges to assist Sierra Leone in her very grievous shortage, which is holding up a good deal of development in that country.
I also hope, as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, that very serious thought will be given to the way in which other Commonwealth countries can assist the newly developing countries which are becoming independent. A short time ago I had a very interesting conversation with a Tasmanian education officer who was in England recruiting teachers for Tasmania. I suggested to him that it might be interesting if his Government persuaded one or two Tasmanian teachers to teach in Sierra Leone. I am sure that this gesture from a small country such as Tasmania to a


small country such as Sierra Leone would have an effect out of all proportion to the numbers involved. If this Ministry can fertilise ideas and make contacts of this description all over the Commonwealth, it will have a much greater impact than would be expected from the amount of money which may be spent.
In a previous debate, dealing with the Overseas Service Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) put forward what I think was a far-reaching and imaginative idea, and I should like to repeat it. He said that he thought that every professional person in Britain should contemplate at quite an early stage in his career doing a stint of service overseas. I hope that the new Ministry will go to some trouble to produce an atmosphere in which British people, who have had the very great benefit of receiving all the advantages which we have in medicine, education, science, and so on, feel that they are under an obligation to go overseas early in their careers, when they have no family ties, to make a contribution to the Commonwealth. I am sure that this could be one of the most effective ways of persuading territories which are becoming independent that we mean what we say when we say that we want to see them firmly independent and not tied to British capital.
There is another matter which needs consideration. The terms of compensation for civil servants and officers going out to new territories seem to me satisfactory, but I urge the Financial Secretary to ask the new Ministry to look at the position of some of the universities or the university colleges developing in new countries. I particularly refer to a matter which I have raised previously—the situation in Fourah Bay College. I asked the Colonial Secretary why members of that college should not be treated as public servants, and I was given the orthodox but not very satisfactory answer that Fourah Bay is now an independent institution.
Since I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman I have had some evidence which points the other way. In the first place, the college was mostly staffed by recruits from England and was in the same category of Kumasi College of Technology, for example. I have been told that members of the staff going to

Nigeria and then leaving the public service, both in the university at Ibadan and also the public service in Nigeria, have had their service in Fourah Bay College counted as public service. I have been informed that members of the college going into the public service in Sierra Leone have had their service with the college counted as public service for compensation rights. I further learn that before a member of the Fourah Bay College can leave the college and resign he has to make application to the Governor to retire from public service.
I can take those three sets of facts only at face value, but if any one is right it demands another look at this situation. It also demands a look at the position of other universities as they develop to ensure that this situation is not repeated.
I hope that the new Ministry will encourage movement from England in the way of conferences and so on in educational matters and industrial matters, so that it is easier for British people to back up conferences overseas. Quite recently, the Executive Committee of the National Institute of Adult Education had a very unsatisfactory interview with the Minister of Education on this theme. We thought that it was very good for this country that our people should be represented when international conferences were held about adult education. The Minister thought that the present situation was satisfactory and that no more encouragement was needed. I hope that here the new Ministry will be more forthcoming than the Ministry of Education has been.
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East, I must voice disappointment about economic aid. It is most disappointing that there is at present no suggestion at all that economic aid should be dealt with other than by the sort of complacent attitude that emerges from Cmnd. 974. I looked at the Annex in respect of the two West African countries in which I am particularly interested, and I found that the assistance to Ghana over the last three years has been very small indeed.
I do not know whether the Government think that Ghana is misbehaving herself, but grants and technical assistance of £·6 million for 1957–58, of £·1 million for 1958–59 and an estimated


£·1 million for 1959–60 seems very small for such a thriving country, and bears out the idea that has already been voiced about the need to give an impetus to a country that is at last getting on its feet. I know that Ghana is one of the richest countries in Africa, but such small grants seem to be well below the level that we should be giving.
My criticism of the grants and technical assistance given to Sierra Leone is that they seem to be quite unplanned. I cannot complain that the last sum of £1·2 million in grants and technical assistance and £1·6 million in loans is unreasonable, but the fact that in the previous year the amount was only £·2 million in grants and technical assistance and, in the year before, £·7 million, may explain Sierra Leone's stagnant economy when this is the right moment for that economy to be expanding.
The Financial Secretary probably very well knows Sierra Leone's difficulties in getting its economy on the move. Apart from agriculture, its only two major industries are diamonds and the iron mines, and it needs very much to diversify. That can be done only by securing foreign capital. Even though the Bill does not deal with this subject, I hope that the Government as a whole will give very serious thought to helping the economic future of Sierra Leone by way of grants and loans.
In the same Cmnd. Paper there are various tables showing grants and loans made by private industry and by Government, but there is no reference to the rate of interest charged. On the Government side, we should have something equivalent to what local authorities used to have—loans at very much lower rates of interest than the market rate—and on the private side we should know at least what their profits and rates of interest are. Nowhere in this document is there any reference to that.
It may well be that modern private capital has reformed itself, but it may be that there are companies that still exploit Africa in the bad old way. We have all been rather complacent today on this subject. We have all said that over the last few years private industry—and even the Conservative Party—has learned new methods and that there is no longer any danger of exploitation. I

sometimes wonder if that is true. If it is true, the facts and figures should be made available, and when the new Ministry is under way it will be of great help to those of us who are interested in the problem to have an annual report, and an annual discussion in this House about methods, and so on, and rather better tables, rather better information than is contained in the two White Papers.

7.16 p.m.

Mr. A. P. Costain: For the last thirty years I have been one of a team engaged in developing underdeveloped countries, and I ask the indulgence of the House while I put forward one or two points. It is not that I propose to give the new Minister any advice; listening to the whole of today's debate, as I have done, I believe that if he were to accept all the advice that has been given he would be a very busy man before he even started work. In such a situation, a Minister wants to know much more about the problems rather than be given advice on how to deal with them. His own ability will enable him to deal with the problems as they arise.
We must realise, first, that we are now talking of a world-wide effort. Much has been said about the Commonwealth alone but, as I see it, this is a worldwide project. My own experience leads me to say—and we worked in all sorts of countries in different stages of development—that the same sort of treatment and the same sort of ideas cannot apply on a world-wide scale. There is no one single solution. I very strongly support what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) said; he obviously spoke from practical personal experience.
The new Ministry needs backing up with practical experience. It wants in it men who have worked abroad, and who know the parts of the world with which they are dealing and the individual problems which apply. I could delay the House for a long time speaking of the experience of our own team. I could say how different faces have not fitted in different parts of the world; in some cases for reasons that are quite obvious when one hears them, and in others for quite silly reasons. If I were asked to give a formula for a technical person who was to work in any part of the world, I


would advise picking the man who can smile, because a smile is the thing that the people of the under-developed countries understand.
I was very alarmed to hear hon. Members opposite talking about a Minister for Aid. The new Minister will have enough on his plate, if he is to do his present job properly, without making himself a Commonwealth Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Minister of Education, and without our giving him a colossal control.
This sort of problem cannot be solved by sitting in a large signal box and pulling levers and saying that we will build a dam in India and something else somewhere else. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) quoted an example of how he went with a private enterprise company to build houses in Jamaica. My own company is working not in Jamaica, but in Barbados, and I fully appreciate the problems of raising finance in such areas. I can assure the hon. Member that it is easier to raise finance in Jamaica than it is in many other parts of the world.
In spite of what he said, I do not believe that the problem can be solved by one enormous authority, because we would then start to be in the danger of putting too much power in one man's hands and relying too much on his opinion about what was the right thing to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds has pointed the value of simple things in simple areas. In my own experience I have found simple things, such as that a slow operating engine works much better in the tropics than a fast-running engine, partly because the natives understand it when it goes "chug chug", and partly because it does not have a lot of complicated apparatus.
We have heard much about how the new Ministry is to be formed. We have had impressed upon us the importance of a world-wide effort and of world responsibility if this work is to be attempted. The other Ministers whose Departments will be deprived of staff must realise their moral responsibly for giving the best they have to this new Ministry. In my own company, when we are working in a new part of the world and introducing a new company, we find that the success of the team depends upon it getting together and deciding that there is a difficult task to be

done and that every department will have to make sacrifices, sacrifices which are made gladly because all departments know that their turn will come and that upon their sacrifices depend the experience and reputation of the team which goes. I hope that the same attitude will be taken by the Government Departments which have to make staff sacrifices.
There are two small points which have not been made. Great play has been made with the question of education. I accept the need for education, but there does not seem to be enough emphasis on the importance of teaching languages in this country. Quite a lot of the world does not speak English and many of the under-developed countries need linguists. At an early stage the new Minister should approach the Minister of Education, not to do his job for him, but to satisfy himself that our schools appreciate the importance of languages.
There has been some discussion about degrees in technical subjects, and reference has been made to the fact that some students fail examinations in certain subjects and are then not fully qualified. We have to realise that we are training not only for today, but for the future. If we are to train engineers and technicians, let us train them to degree standard, but not only academic but practical degree standard. The Institute of Builders has appreciated that of recent years and now has a system which allows for different levels of engineer, of craftsman and of technician. It is important that there should be those grades and that we should not hold up anyone merely because he is not fully qualified. Let us send out those people who are able to do the task. The definition of "civil engineer" is a man who harnesses the powers of nature for the benefit of mankind. I hope that that will be the motto of this new Ministry.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: Throughout the centuries politicians have made speeches about priorities, which are extremely important, and they always talk in terms of settling the priorities themselves, but history has always shown that it settles the priorities for them. I do not know what we shall be talking about next week, but in the last week


or two we have been talking about unprecedented, unforeseen and rather surprising events in both the Carribean and North Africa. Priorities will continue to settle themselves.
The Financial Secretary speaks with great sincerity on this subject and I therefore listened to him with great attention. I dislike the Bill and the sort of proposal it contains, and the suggestion that a new Ministry can be staffed with old civil servants, however worthy and able they may be. I am trying to say nothing controversial and no doubt the civil servants will be transferred for respectable reasons, and most hon. Members on this side of the House have great respect for the Colonial Service, but we want new ideas and young men and blokes who can go into this new situation of a world organisation with aspiration and with ideas.
If the Financial Secretary could overcome his natural modesty and suggest to the Prime Minister that this might be a job suitable for him, most of us on this side would have a good deal more respect for the Ministry, because all we are discussing now is a Bill to create a new Department, and fundamentally that is bad, for there are too many Ministers now. The patronage of a Prime Minister or even a Leader of the Opposition in these days is such that he can buy the votes of about 33½ per cent. of the members of his party, and we do not want any more Ministers, but to have one good Minister at last would be not unadvantageous.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), who speaks with not only eloquence and ability, but with a highly reputable record in this matter, made a speech with which I agreed so much that I shall not say more about it. However, the Financial Secretary might have been a little more forthcoming—unless he was so during my short absence when I had to repair the ravages of lack of lunch—about what has happened in Nigeria and the Overseas Service. These debates are apt to concentrate on the non-self-governing Colonial Territories. If the hon. Gentleman takes up this job he may well find that the events have forced the priorities also because the debate to which he referred so felicitously

and appreciatively which took place last night was concentrated on the southern part of Africa, and Basutoland, Swailand and Bechuanaland may become priorities. That will not be because of some assessment of need—although, heaven knows, their need is great—but because their political importance has become vital.
There is no decent living available for most of those in the three protectorate territories, or in the three semi-trustee protectorate territories which are adjacent to—indeed, one is included in—the area of South Africa. Basutoland, Swaziland and Bechuanaland which we have discussed from time to time ever since I have been in this House (how often have we talked about the Kalahari Desert?) are territories which may force their own priorities on to the Government. Bechuanaland produced the greatest cattle expert in Africa, Tshekedi Khama, who was not consulted by the Labour Government in 1945 when they produced their scheme for cattle raising in Bechuanaland.
I wish to say a word or two about Nigeria, because I should have thought that on the whole Nigeria is about the least controversial territory in the whole of Africa. It is common ground on both sides of the House that it has about the ablest African leaders to be found on the Continent of Africa today. They are men like the Prime Minister, Balewa, and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the new Governor-General, men of distinction in any society in the world and men of ability in any society in the world. They know their problems. I had the good fortune to be present at the installation of the Governor-General. He would not mind my mentioning that in the past there have been times when his affection for the British Empire has been tempered with a certain amount of polemical rhetoric, but I heard him make a passionate declaration of loyalty to the Queen. One sees that they have done there something which it is not easy for us in this country to do—sunk their party differences in order to work for the common good. Dr. Azikiwe's acceptance of the Governorship surprised most people.
They have one of the finest European civil services which have existed in Africa. I saw the departure of the late


Governor and saw the demonstration of popular emotion. I rather expected to hear "Will ye no' come back again?" sung in African dialect as I once heard "On Ilkla' Moor baht'at". There is no question about the good feeling, but one knows of some of the problems. One knows, for example, that Europeans are paid at European rates, although it is fair to add that they must be badly off in the highly inflationary atmosphere of Lagos. It may be that those are not the rates which the Nigerian Government would wish to pay in the future, but their pride would not permit them to differentiate between residents and non-residents in terms of wages.
That was precisely why the Overseas Service Bill was passed. It was because European civil servants were making arrangements to go at the time when we were there, not in anger or in any dissatisfaction, but leaving spheres of work to which many of them were genuinely devoted. They were uncertain about the future and uncertain about the directives. The provision which had been made by this House was apparently not to be brought in in any circumstances.

Mr. Costain: I mentioned this point in my speech and I should like to be permitted a short intervention. My impression about these things in Nigeria is that Nigerians are worried that if the British expatriates were to take a salary from Britain they would have dual loyalties. I am told on very good authority that that is the only fear they have. If they are paid by Nigeria a certain sum and by the British another sum, the Nigerians wonder how they could be expected to be loyal to Nigeria. That, I understand, is the only problem. I am quite certain that when they realise that it is because they do not appreciate what Civil Service loyalty is and cannot understand Civil Service loyalty, they will accept it.

Mr. Hale: I can well understand that that may be the popular view, but I am perfectly certain it could not be the view of those working in the Government of Nigeria. I think they perfectly understand the independence of the British civil servant, with his devotion to his job, free from political affiliations.
I visited the prisons in Lagos and saw the European director who was leaving the next week and was being replaced by a European second-in-command

who was expected to leave in a few months' time. Those of us interested in penal reform know that a first-class prison governor is a rara avis. I do not say that in any political sense, but he is a rare chap. A man who can build up the prison service in Lagos in the almost fantastic building circumstances we witnessed there with a building nearly as old as Dartmoor—with the execution shed overlooked by the maternity hospital, and thirty-seven prisoners were under sentence of death—a man who can develop a prison service in those circumstances, is worthy of admiration and respect. I think it a tragedy that these people are leaving.
I know that the Financial Secretary is deputising at the last moment for someone else who should have presented the Bill, but there are important questions which ought to be answered.
I come now to my second point. I have always disclosed to the House that I have no economic cards up my sleeve. I do not profess to understand economics, and although I know many who do profess to understand economics, I do not know any who do understand economics.
The first point that we have to remember in this field is that bunging a heavy industry into an undeveloped territory is not an unmixed blessing. I am not trying to be political. I am trying to quote uncontroversial examples because the atmosphere on both sides so far has been constructive, and I do not want to disturb it.
In Venezuela I visited the plant of the United Steel Corporation of America. There someone had by chance—I think it was due to an aeroplane accident—discovered an immense mountain deep in the jungle beyond the Orinoco which was mostly iron ore. So they started to develop it. Nothing could have been better than the operations of the company. It is a first-class corporation; something like a world power.
This is one of the important questions which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) touched on. The company erected ports on the Orinoco, 90 miles of road and railway and the best housing in Venezuela. It provided the best conditions for its men. Its reputation as a developing company was


as good as one can find anywhere in the world.
The first results were beneficial. The Venezuelan Government needed revenue, and this provided a taxable income. The Venezuelan Government began to dig very deep into it, and will go on digging deeper year by year. If we wanted to export technical assistance anywhere in the world and we sent a couple of dozen first-class British Income Tax inspectors to Venezuela, they could probably raise a great deal more money for the Venezuelan Government than any other economic operation that one could envisage.
But round the periphery one is creating a raging inflation and accentuating the poverty of those who are outside the circle. One has created unbalanced conditions. Not only that; with one's raging inflation one has nothing for the people who have money to spend unless one is prepared to provide consumer goods in relation to one's developing industry, and then one is still up against the future.
This is what I was talking about last week. I do not propose to repeat myself, but, after all, countries in the end have to pay for their exports and not their imports. Every time I say this six people giggle and go out and are slightly distressed, and nobody seems to understand what I mean. But this is the whole problem of world development. It is a problem of one's permanent trade surplus. If one has an export surplus, one is engaged in an act of economic war. One has to divert to investment. The United States has had to face this problem.
I do not want to impute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) anything which he did not mean, and I am sure he did not mean this, but he talked about co-operation with the United States in this matter, and went on to talk about the free world. I do not know where the free world is. Whether it is the world of General Franco, Dr. Salazar, General Salan, Angola, and so on, I do not know. But I do know that if one is going to embark on world development as a form of political warfare one will fail. One will start on the wrong foot.
My friends in America, who have a very honourable record in this way, say "We all realise this. We have to tag this on, though, to please the less intelligent voters of Alabama." I hope that those voters of Alabama have a clear conception of the implications concerned. But one cannot do it. A suffering child is a suffering child whether it is Chinese or Nigerian, or wherever it comes from.
I come back to Nigeria for a moment. I quote it only because it is a rather uncontroversial country and also one that I have fairly recently visited, if only for a short time. The Teal need of Nigeria is for doctors. The real need of Nigeria is for agricultural scientists. They have made great experiments in agricultural development. They have their little stations and their organisation. But what happens? They have got to have a taxable revenue. They have already got inflation in Lagos. They have got to get new industries into the area of Lagos to provide their taxable revenue, and every new industry which goes there increases the inflation and drags the people from agriculture.
That is why today, if I may go again to Venezuela, the land in Caracas is dearer than it is in the City of London. There is an enormous shanty-town being built at Caracas because one has made a land fit for spivs to live in and one is denuding agriculture and raw material production. This large country, with its vast area of land, is actually importing eggs on a huge scale because it has failed to provide a balanced production. These are the problems.
I would say again to the hon. Gentleman—I certainly never thought of appealing to him as Hamlet's father's ghost, even in his present streamlined condition, and I hope he will not accept my compliments at a premium—that if we are to have a Minister to deal with this matter, we want someone who really has power and really has, as he suggested, access to the Prime Minister. We want someone who will not be encumbered by a choice of staff which is dictated by other Departments, and someone who certainly has not got to go to another Minister for the promotion of his own men. If he is to do anything with this, he must have the right to say "I want that man and this man to lead this organisation."
The hon. Member for Wavertree raised several questions of great importance, such as empire co-operation. If one wants knowledge about raw material production, if one wants knowledge of the sort of raw material production that one is likely to envisage in large African territories, one is a great deal more likely to get it from Australia and Canada. Since I was in Canada in 1945, I have constantly raised the question of Commonwealth consultation, of a Commonwealth consultative Parliament, not to take decisions, but to exchange views. During these fifteen years, no one has paid the slightest attention to it.
I heard the Prime Minister at the Box today say that, of course, we must go to a good deal of trouble to find out all the problems of the Commonwealth in relation to possible participation in the Common Market. We ought to know these things. They ought to be a matter of day-to-day discussion. They should be part of the textbook of every politician. It is certainly from the sentiment and the good will of the Commonwealth that we draw a great deal of the power for good that we have in world affairs. We cannot afford lightly to discard them. That is why co-operation and consultation could take in any other country that is willing to participate or join. Do not let us talk as if we are leading in these matters. We are not. The Scandinavian countries have a singularly honourable record in this sphere.
I want to say a personal word to the Minister. Nobody doubts his sincerity. Most of us respect deeply his record in this matter. If, however, he is to impress Africa with his good will, two problems have to be dealt with and he must deal with them, answer them and say what he has in mind.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) produced a paper on communications in Africa many years ago, during the time of the Labour Government. It was a secret document. I was not supposed to see it. Therefore, my recollection of it must continue to be a little vague. Where does background expenditure come into the scheme? It will never pay in terms of so much per cent. interest. Communications are vital. Indeed, they dominate some of the amalgamations of countries in Africa. The position of Tanganyika, of Uganda and of Nyasaland,

if she were to come into an East African Federation, is dominated by the communications of Kenya, and Kenya may not be dominated by the sort of political Government to which they aspire. Communications are essential. Nigeria has tolerable communications on the seaboard and, perhaps, around the Niger delta. Inland, however, up to Lake Chad, much of the communication is still by primitive boat and by water. These problems will not be solved unless somebody is prepared to do a great deal more.
It is a matter really for a world organisation. That is why I speak with hesitation, with wonder and with doubt at the creation of a new Ministry, which, we are told, will co-ordinate the work of existing organisations and which, apparently, will not have anything to do with the United Nations, which has a splendid record of work in this sphere. Thus we are merely adding another Ministry with limited responsibility, which must co-ordinate with three or four existing Ministries, which must let an existing Ministry run the promotion of its staff and which has access to the Prime Minister, who certainly has many other preoccupations, and we are to have a quite separate agency dealing with the United Nations, its Special Agencies, and so on.
The second of the two words which I want to say to the right hon. Gentleman is that there are certain tests of sincerity. If there is one organisation of the United Nations which has won the respect of everybody who has ever been associated with it, it is the United Nations Children's Fund. We continue to give a contribution so contemptible and mean as to put in doubt the sincerity of all the stuff we talk about aid to suffering peoples.
The infant mortality rate in some of the African countries is appalling. Do not let us fail to face the sort of thing that is difficult to say and chat is open to criticism—that the more young lives we save in some of these territories, the greater will become their economic problems. This is one of the dilemmas which we must face. In some of these territories there is already overpopulation, which is being increased to an enormous extent. The only way of facing these problems—and they must be faced—is to do what we believe to be


right. I do not have the figures at my command offhand, but a few years ago we were debtors to the Children's Fund. If one computes the niggardly subscription that was taken from our national expenditure, so much of it was being spent in British Colonial Territories that we were actually gaining a profit on our participation in the Children's Fund.
As the second part of this final paragraph, let me say this. There is another fund. I have not had any communication with it directly for some years, so I do not speak as an advocate. Some years ago, I raised the question of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind. The problem of blindness in Africa is one of the most moving and most terrible that can be found anywhere in the world.
When I was a lad, one talked of leprosy as the terrible scourge from which there was no relief. Today, blindness in Africa has reached the stage that up around Lake Chad, there are whole villages of blind people, helpless. Six or seven months ago, I went to a small station run by the Royal Commonwealth Society. Speaking from memory, that station could take, I believe, 24 totally blind Africans, some of whom had come 2,000 miles for treatment and a number of whom, by the sheer force of poverty, were neglected and deserted by their families when this affliction came upon them.
Under the direction of a lass from Lancashire, that little station was trying to train—and succeeding—24 adult totally blind men to go back to their territory equipped to win a meagre livelihood by clearing a bit of bush. They had to have training which would enable them to clear a little bit of bush and to dig it, and sow it with seeds provided by the organisation. Totally blind they had to do it, and thus to wrest enough from the bush to provide their subsistence, and if they could do it they would then have a higher standard of living than most of those in their villages.
That is the problem. What do we do for that organisation now? I spent some time a year or two ago trying to get help for it. This is one of the fields in which private enterprise has a very honourable record, because most of the money that organisation was getting, I

remember, came from a few big firms. From the Government, how much?
If the Government are sincere, if they really mean that in establishing a new Ministry they are going sincerely to try to fight some of the problems of poverty and suffering and deprivation, why do they not start with a little more help to some of the essentially decent organisations which add to our reputation throughout the world, which provide little bastions of intelligent, decent democracy in every country where they settle? The Government might start that way, and if they were to start that way, I say to the right hon. Gentleman, then at least they might give us a certain guarantee of the sincerity of Her Majesty's present advisers to work conscientiously and effectively in these fields.

7.52 p.m.

Dr. Alan Thompson: My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his very moving and eloquent observations. Indeed, I would not be capable of matching his eloquence.
I should like to take up a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), in his excellent speech, in which he queried whether we should set up a Ministry in which technical assistance is divorced from the wider context of capital needs and the provision of capital. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) denied that any Ministry could do this. A Ministry of Aid, he said, was not practicable. I shall deny this proposition, and I think that the Financial Secretary will agree with me. He knows about the work which has been done in recent years by economists and statisticians on investment surveys, and that we are now at that stage of knowledge where it would be possible.
The proposition for setting up the Ministry was to look at the amounts and kinds of investment suitable for different territories, at questions concerned with the creation of purchasing power, the building up of productive power, and achieving maximum national incomes. We have much more knowledge now on these subjects than we had even ten years ago, thanks to the national-income


economists and statisticians, and I think that the Financial Secretary, who dips into an economics text-book as nonchalantly as many of his hon. Friends peruse the Reader's Digest, will know that there is a need for a Ministry with this knowledge which can advise upon the needs of the underdeveloped countries.
Let us just for a moment look at this question of underdevelopment. We have to get out of the habit of thinking that God has divided the world into two immutable sectors, the developed and the underdeveloped. We were all underdeveloped once; and, indeed, looking at the other side of the coin, many countries which are now classified as underdeveloped are richer in natural resources than some of the countries of the West which think of themselves as so developed and so advanced. It can be seen that we have all had to work through certain economic processes, and that our problems have been similar, and that there is no fixed division between the kind of country which needs paternal aid and advice and another more advanced in wisdom. As I said, we all, in our turn, pass through certain well-defined phases towards development.
There are exceptions, of course. It would, for instance, take a whole army of economists and statisticians to transform the Kalahari Desert by investment policy into a kind of industrial and commercial Holland. An adult rabbit does not grow naturally and inevitably into a baby elephant. But, outside the polar and the desert regions, most of the rest of the world has considerable possibilities of economic development. We have seen, in the work of economic historians, that economic development has not necessarily been confined to specially favoured regions or to areas enjoying a specially favourable climate. The efforts of man have conquered these difficulties.
In recorded history, industrial and commercial leadership has frequently passed from one region to another and from one country to another. Countries in the Mediterranean area and in Southern Europe, which were once economically advanced, have slipped back, while other nations, once backward, have gone on to economic greatness. Lest we get to benevolently paternalistic, we might remember that

some of these countries now described as underdeveloped possess such enormous economic potential that one day they may be setting up agencies to help us if we slip back.
We have seen that natural resources are important to economic development, but, again, possession of such resources cannot be claimed as the sole criterion whether investment should be directed there. In North America, for instance, the possession of vast natural resources did not help the primitive Indians, who wandered about there for centuries without ever doing much about it. There is no evidence that any Sioux or Apache economist ever wrote a book on the problems of an affluent society, although they had the natural resources underneath them and round about them. There are, of course, other factors besides natural resources, such as productive techniques, and a population of a certain size and quality and of a certain educational and technical level.
I say this to point out that underdeveloped countries comprise a very diverse collection, but there are certain characteristics which they have in common which can guide us in what kind of help to give. The first is the low level of real income per head of the population. When I was in Nyasaland, recently, I was told that the national income per head of the population was £9 per year, which is rather less than a British family spends on its dog. Secondly, these countries are lacking in accumulated capital, and they also have the related problem of the backwardness of their techniques.
I was surprised to hear some hon. Members opposite extolling, it seemed to me uncritically, the advantages of industrialisation. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West touched upon this point. I think that we have to approach this mystique of industrialisation very warily. A few economic thinkers of the West are to some extent to blame for applying their analysis based on Western societies to these backward territories. Some of them have misunderstood the basic problems of these backward areas. They have misunderstood the nature of the subsistence economy and the agriculture which is the basis of these countries.
Some economists have tended to say that industrialisation is the answer to all


problems. They point out that an industrial country has better social services, has a more efficient army, and has an educational system higher than anywhere else, and that, therefore, as all these benefits spring, in the history of the West, from industrialisation, the country which does not industrialise quickly enough cannot share these benefits.
This view has, I think, now come to be regarded as mistaken. We should acknowledge that manufacturing industry is simply one type of economic activity and that there is not necessarily any strong reason why it should be given preference. We can have a high level of national income in backward countries based on agriculture. The high national income of a country stems from its natural resources and from its resources of technical and managerial skills, and both can be applied to agriculture as well as to industry. In the past, we have tended to apply them to industry and to neglect them in agriculture. The contrast has been painted between a pitiful subsistence level in agriculture, while industry can have good factories and beautiful new houses. We have to think of developing agriculture in this way, and applying to backward countries some of these managerial techniques which, for over a hundred years, we have applied to industry.

Sir E. Boyle: I am very interested in the point, but I confess that I cannot altogether agree with the hon. Member's last few words. Does he not think that there is some significance in the fact that if one wants to engage a farm worker one of the first questions that he or his wife asks is what the local schools are like? I should have thought that that was a significant point.

Dr. Thompson: I do not say that agricultural workers should be held to a lower standard than industrial workers. Our aim should be to see the economy as a whole develop so that the living standards of all these workers should not only be comparable, but should rise.
When some economic writers apply their techniques to backward countries they should be wary of measuring things by our own yardsticks. Unemployment is a serious problem in these backward countries, but it is not so easily solved as is sometimes thought. It often depends,

particularly in Africa, on a complex social system, and it is sometimes hard to determine who is working and who is not. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the involuntarily idle, the unemployed in our sense, from those who have a strong preference for leisure or at least a preference for casual and intermittent employment. These attitudes towards work must be broken down, particularly in Africa. Enlightened African leaders would be the first to admit it.
When people look at investment possibilities in countries like the African countries too much is made of the so-called lower quality of the African worker. We have seen in our own history that workers can adjust very quickly to new conditions. It is argued that the African worker is lazy, unstable, or has a poor output, and that these failings depend on racial characteristics. The racial argument is nonsense. We had similar difficulties in adjusting workers to the new pace of industrial change in Britain in the nineteenth century. We solved our problems largely in Britain once a stable political and economic environment had been achieved, and once these are achieved in the African territories the African worker will respond very quickly.
There are complaints, too, that the white overseers tend to be critical and impatient of African workers. As has been said in the debate, the overseers do not smile enough. This is a simple point, but it is true. Secondly, the African worker resents the higher social position of the white worker. This is changing and there is a situation now in parts of Africa where employers and African workers are trying to reach agreement in spite of obstacles put in the way by white workers.
As one employer in Africa put it to me, there is not only the problem of underpaying the Africans, but that of overpaying the whites. These Europeans came to that part of Africa when it was a white man's grave. They had to be paid a great deal to get them there, but now, with the advent of modern drugs, better health and housing and other advantages, that part of the world is no longer the white man's grave. European workers came there when the white man expected automatically a higher standard of living than that of the Africans. This


proposition is no longer accepted so simply and uncritically. Indeed, it is bitterly resented by Africans, and we must face this problem.
In pleading for a Ministry of Aid in the wider sense, I would expect to see a Ministry that would try to strike a balance in help to backward countries between what might be called social investment and productive investment. This is an extremely difficult balance to strike. If we spend too much on social services we divert resources which could be used to expand production. If we expand production without the social services we are surrounded, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, said, by poverty on the periphery of plenty. But this is a problem that we must tackle and economists are doing work to try to find this balance. We were lucky in Britain. We built up a tremendous accumulation of capital before the demand for higher social services came as a result of political emancipation. But the African politician of the future must advance the social services alongside productive investments. It is not politically possible for him to hold his people at subsistence level during the period of intensive investment.
I should also like to have seen a Ministry of Aid examining the problem, of what one might call the dangers of one-sector development, in some of our backward countries. In the Federation of Central Africa, for instance, 40 per cent. of their investment is devoted to transport and 4 per cent. to agriculture. There is clearly imbalance there, possibly because the transport enthusiasts have, so to speak, prevailed in their investment proposals over the agriculturists.
I am not denying that Central Africa needs communications, but 40 per cent. for transport as against 4 per cent. for agriculture, which is the basic economy of the country and the means of subsistence for millions of Africans, does not seem to be the right proportion. In Sarawak, 54 per cent. of the investment goes to transport and only 14 per cent. to agriculture. This kind of maximum one-sector investment is not always commensurate with an increase to the maximum level of national income.
All this adds up to a criticism that in the past the allocation of funds by Her Majesty's Government to help these countries has not always followed a consistent

policy. The Government have been very confused as to what they should spend or lend or give to the social services and what they should allocate for productive enterprise. It is difficult to criticise the Government for this, because these problems are very complex and difficult to solve, but I think that an attempt should be made. I am not sure that this Ministry and its terms of reference are wide enough to investigate these problems.
Perhaps the Financial Secretary will deny this; perhaps he has powers up his sleeve, but, as I read the Bill, it seems to me that the powers of the Ministry and the range of its staff are not adequate for examining the kind of crucial problems with which I am dealing. I was an academic economist long enough to have a certain slight agnosticism on the whole subject of economics, but I nevertheless believe very strongly in the usefulness of many economic techniques developed in recent years, and I believe that we should use the economic research institutes and other bodies to assist us. Experts in national-income analysis can give us many useful criteria in the allocation of investment to achieve a maximum return. A straightforward allocation to achieve maximum return would involve a ranking by the British Government of all possible investment projects overseas in terms of some criterion of economic return. The central Ministry should be able to draw upon the findings of input-output specialists. It would not always act on its schedules. It would sometimes say, "Social and political considerations demand that we should do this and planning considerations demand that we should do the other" but at least it would have the schedule from which to work.
Clearly, however carefully we plan, we should never remove all the risks of investment. I hardly need refer to the Tanganyika groundnuts scheme, though I would say that it was not the economist but the meteorologist who was to blame for this failure. The plan failed because of a mis-estimate of the rainfall. That is the kind of thing which can happen, given the best will in the world, and nobody can pretend that every Government will always be free from making mistakes.
To take another example, let us consider the plans for investment in 1955–60


which were made when world commodity prices were buoyant. Then came falls in the prices of coffee, sisal, rubber, and groundnuts and this made nonsense of all the predictions. This leads me to the point made by several of my hon. Friends that we cannot do very much unless we have a United Nations agency working for the stabilisation of primary prices through the F.A.O. This can only be done at the United Nations level. This lends force to the argument that the Government must support and positively urge through its delegates on the various agencies of the United Nations measures to try to get some order and economic sanity into world price arrangements, particularly with respect to primary products.
All this indicates that I am critical of the very limited functions of the new Ministry, and I would prefer that we had a Ministry with much wider and imaginative aims. Nevertheless, limited as the aims are, we wish it well. I should like it to conduct work in the field of education, maintaining close liaison with the universities for the exchange of students, scientists, technologists, and so on. I should also like to see it maintain much closer relations with the various bodies concerned with Commonwealth technical education and international technical education than the Government have done in the past.
I sit on a committee composed of a number of hon. Members, industrialists and educationists, the Commonwealth Technical Education Committee. We certainly get courteous replies from the Government whenever we correspond with them, but I do not think that we get much action. I hope that this new Ministry will be able, instead of expressing pious interest and hope, to give some concrete help to the various schemes we have put forward. In conclusion, I say that it is not the Ministry I would have liked, but I still wish it well.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: This debate has been going on a very long time, longer than was expected, but, in my view, not too long. I think that the length of the debate and the quality of the speeches have done a great deal to indicate to the Minister and to Her Majesty's Government the importance

which hon. Members attach to this subject.
The Bill has received only a qualified welcome, not because it is bad in itself but because we are doubtful whether it will fulfil the aspirations which the Minister has of it. I should like to echo some of the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and other hon. Members on this side of the House in saying how much we hope that when this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament it will be clothed with real energy and we shall have a Minister appointed to this new Department with vision and ideas, and the drive and ability to carry out the objectives which we hope the Government have in mind and which, as several of my hon. Friends have pointed out, the Government ought to have in mind.
Tremendous opportunities are afforded; in fact the opportunities are limitless, but I will try not to duplicate anything said by my hon. Friends. I hope, however, that when the Minister comes to reply he will clear up some of the obscurities with regard to the procedural concept of the Bill. I was not very clear from his opening speech exactly what are to be the limitations and the functions of the new Minister. I shall be disappointed if all that the new Minister does is to recruit staff from the three existing Departments now dealing with these functions.
I hope that the new Minister and the new Department, vitalised, as I hope they will be, with new blood and new staff, will take a new look at the immense possibilities and moral responsibilities which this House and the country have in giving all kinds of technical aid and educational aid and assistance to overseas countries.
Would the Minister, when he replies, give us some enlightenment about the financial implications of the Bill? Would he give us some idea of the size of the staff with which this Ministry will be equipped and of the extent of the Vote which this House will be passing in order to enable this Ministry to fulfil its functions? Would he also give us some idea of what Vote will be required not merely for the departmental expenses of the Ministry but for the actual expenditure on technical assistance overseas? Indeed, I hope that we shall not find, when it


comes to the Vote of this Department, that we are merely asked to vote departmental expenses and that the only object of this Ministry is as the Explanatory Memorandum says:
…to co-ordinate, promote and carry out arrangements…
I hope that the Minister will be able to initiate financial contributions where they are wanted. Could he, for example, tell us more than he has told us about the valuable functions now being performed by the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Foreign Office which will be taken over by the Ministry? I refer to the Geological Survey in Africa and the Topographical Survey, for example. All these are fundamental to technical assistance in African countries.
There is one other specific aspect of this problem on which I hope the Minister will enlighten us a little. I refer to the activities of the Inter-University Council for Higher Education overseas which is mentioned in paragraph 9 of the White Paper on Technical Assistance. When the Prime Minister made his announcement about this Ministry on 23rd March he was noticeably reticent about this, although he was asked questions about it by both the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and myself.
I understand from what the Minister said that educational functions are outside the scope of the Bill and will be channelled through U.N.E.S.C.O., and I gather that health matters will continue to be dealt with through the World Health Organisation, but I am concerned about the valuable activities which have hitherto been undertaken by the Inter-University Council for Higher Education Overseas. This body was set up by the Labour Government through the inspiration of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones). It is worth while recording the immensely valuable services which have been rendered by British universities, notably the University of London, in assisting overseas countries notably in Africa, some dependent, and some formerly dependent but now independent, in establishing their own universities and university colleges.
I gather that the functions of that Council are not limited to Commonwealth

countries but are intended to apply also to overseas countries outside the Commonwealth. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether this new Department will be able to give further assitance in this field where it is urgently required. We should be nattered that people look to us in this country for this kind of academic assistance.
I will mention a specific example which came to my notice a few months ago. I was in Jordan, a country outside the Commonwealth but with which we have very close, intimate and sentimental ties—a country to which we make a substantial financial subvention to enable her to establish for herself a viable economic life. Jordan is a poor country. The standard of living of many of the Bedouins—particularly in times of drought—is one of considerable hardship. On the other hand, Jordan is a country of which it is true to say that its stability and independence are in large measure essential for the stability and peace of the Middle East.
When I was there I was struck by the fact that in interviews which I had with His Majesty King Hussein, with the Prime Minister, with the Commander-in-Chief and with others, they all stressed the need for setting up a university in Jordan and they are naturally looking to this country for assistance in establishing such a project. Heaven knows, Jordan needs a great deal of technical assistance and financial help of various kinds, but the enlightened leaders of that country realise the long-term importance of having their own university like all their neighbours. I am not thinking only of the great Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but also of the universities in other Arab countries in the Middle East.
In Jordan they realise that they have no university, but they have 500 students a year wanting higher education, and those students have to go outside Jordan either to Beirut or to an English university or elsewhere. If any country is to compete economically and also is to develop its own culture and independence, it must encourage and develop a cadre of its best students so that in the coursse of time they can provide ideas for progressive advancement in their own country.
No country, not Nigeria, not Rhodesia, nor any other of the African


countries which we have helped in the last few years in establishing universities, can perform that task without assistance from outside. We should be proud that in Jordan they look to us to give them the initial assistance by the provision of administrative expertise, and the supply for short periods of a number of professors and lecturers to enable them to develop their own university, so that in the course of time they can cater for their own students of university calibre.
This is a sphere in which we in this country, with our great cultural achievements, our great wealth of academic experience and traditions and our supply of skilled professors and teachers, have a duty, an obligation and an opportunity to render assistance to a number of overseas countries, some in the Commonwealth and others, like Jordan, outside it. I have mentioned this as an instance of a pressing need of a different kind, in addition to those in the economic, technical and social spheres which other hon. Members have mentioned, in which there is an opportunity of service. I ask the Minister whether this is the sort of thing which the new Minister and his Department will handle, in conjunction with the Inter-University Council, which has proved as valuable in Commonwealth countries, and is presided over by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds?

Mr. G. M. Thomson: Will my hon. Friend allow me to underline the great importance of what he is saying by reminding him that the splendid work which the Inter-University Council does is confined to the dependent territories of the Commonwealth and that its work is cut off short and sharp the moment independence is achieved?

Mr. Fletcher: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that, because it is precisely the sort of point that I hope the Minister can clarify. I have, in fact, asked the Chairman of the Council whether they could respond to an official request of the Jordanian Government by giving that assistance, and I understand that in principle the Council would be prepared and glad to do so. There may be a limitation in their resources. They may be asked in

the first place to give only technical advice and assistance.
This is the sort of sphere in which we can usefully aid a country to which we are making an annual subvention of some £2 million with very little additional cost, but with great benefit to the future of Jordan. If this Inter-University Council is not in a position to give aid where it is wanted, then it obviously should be. Whether or not it is able to do so, it seems essentially the sort of task that should attract the energies and the interest of the new Minister when he is appointed.
I have no doubt that other hon. Members know of places where similar opportunities for giving valuable assistance will occur. The opportunities are tremendous. I hope that the Minister will respond to what has been said in this debate, and will impress upon his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the enormous opportunities there are in this sphere; and that we shall have appointed to this office—I would hope, as my hon. Friend said, the Minister himself, but at any rate someone with similar vision and outlook; some one who is sensible of the opportunities that lie ahead.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: In debates on this important question of aid to countries less fortunate than ourselves there is a natural tendency to concentrate discussion on large territories with big populations and to tend to neglect the smaller Colonies that are dependent on this country. We concentrate on the countries that are progressing towards ultimate independence, and we forget about smaller territories that will never be able to sustain themselves, but will always be dependent on us. I refer to such places as the Falkland Islands, Tristan da Cunha and St. Helena, which I had the privilege of visiting some years ago.
There are no riots in these islands. Peace reigns there—but poverty walks hand in hand with peace. I often wonder whether they would be given a better deal if there was more unrest there. There was a time when St. Helena was one of the most important British colonial possessions. The historians say that there would not have been an Empire in the Far East had it not been for the


existence of St. Helena as a victualling station for ships on their way round the Cape of Good Hope.
After the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869, the island became unimportant to the British Empire and since that time its standard of living has deteriorated. Even today, when Britain has "never had it so good", British people are living in destitution in St. Helena. I hope that this Bill will help to bring some measure of additional prosperity to these small territories, and that the Minister will give an assurance to that effect.
St. Helena is a small island of 47 square miles, and has a population of about 4,600 people. The people are descended from the East India Company settlers from this country and are of mixed British, Indian, African and Chinese blood. They are a British people in their attitude, their way of life and their standards.
The cost of foodstuffs and the necessities of life is roughly equivalent to that in this country. There are two private firms in the island which run the flax industry, and these two, with the Government, are the main sources of employment. What is the level of wages on the island? A worker in the flax industry gets £1 13s. 6d. a week. An agricultural labourer employed privately gets £1 13s. 6d.; if employed by the Government he receives £2 5s. a week. A skilled labourer employed by the Government receives £2 6s. 6d. a week. That is the wage position.
Because the workers receive so little, their families do not get enough to eat—that is the position in that island today. The only food crop is potatoes, with a few smallholders growing green vegetables. The animal stock there is donkeys—the chief means of transport—and a few horses and goats, 700 cattle. 1,218 sheep, 266 pigs and 9,200 poultry. There is insufficient meat, milk and egg production to meet the demand. The waters around St. Helena abound with fish, but the islanders do not get enough fish to eat. That is the extent of the success of Government administration in St. Helena.
What are the results of that neglect? The World Health Organisation conducted an inquiry into food and nutrition in St. Helena and reported:

It will be seen that the St. Helena children are in general from 2 to 2½ inches shorter than the London children of the same age, and they reach the same height some 12 to 18 months later.
At 6½ years of age the St. Helena children are 7 lb. lighter than the London children; by 13½ years they are 20 lb. lighter; up to that age the St. Helena children reach the London children weight some 2 to 2½ years later. The difference after 13 years is greater.
Those are the facts and they speak for themselves.
Then there is the question of housing. The housing needs of these people are precisely the same as our own, but housing conditions there are extremely poor. The islanders have no money to repair, extend, or to rebuild their old cottages, which would have been condemned out of hand in this country sixty or seventy years ago. Overcrowding is commonplace and when I was there I heard of as many as 12 sleeping in one bedroom. Two hundred and seventy-seven families on the island with two or more children live in houses with three bedrooms or fewer.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Sounds like Glasgow.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I hope that the Bill will assist in providing better housing conditions for those people.
The education position is very unsatisfactory. I agree that because of the remoteness of the island there are inherent difficulties. There are 12 schools on the island and the figures show that out of a total full-time teaching strength of 62 only two have received university or college education and that, of those, one is the education officer. The standard of teaching therefore cannot be high, although many of the untrained personnel, by virtue of their character and application, are very good teachers. The provision of trained teachers in St. Helena is an urgent necessity, because the children are of a high intelligence.
In one of his reports the Education Officer for St. Helena said:
The general impression obtained is that the standards of intelligence are as high as those in England, and that the proportion of educationally sub-normal children is rather lower than would be the case there.
But when he deals with the home background of these children he says:
Their diet is monotonous, the basis being bread, margarine, fish and tea. Meat is


expensive and scarce and vegetables are also seasonally scarce. Clothing is poor; shoes being worn only by a small proportion of children and adults, while many children have no change of clothing. As they feel the cold easily, presumably because of their poor diet, it is also usual for the country children to wear all the clothes they possess and for these to be washed at week-ends. It is, in fact, a remarkable feature that, with the exception of one or two areas, children, homes and adults are scrupulously clean, both in person and in clothing.
I suggest that, under the provisions of the Bill, the Government might consider making arrangements to second teachers from education authorities in this country to St. Helena so that the children may have an opportunity of a higher standard of learning.
In the Report of the World Health Organisation certain suggestions and recommendations were made. Having regard to the fact that the diet of St. Helenians is so poor, the Report says that certain essential steps should be taken at once to make food available for the people. It goes on to say that if that is not done there will be serious undernutrition and malnutrition in the island.
On the question of employment, the Report says:
There is little doubt that only limited improvements can be brought about unless the economic status of the people is raised. This, in essence, means that some industry, apart from the flagging tax industry, must be established on the Island. However, steps could immediately be taken to increase the production of food, and some public health and educational measures are necessary.
I have described a few of the problems of this Colony because it gives the House an example of a territory for which the House is responsible and which has no Members of Parliament or elected assembly. The people are governed by a Governor, who is virtually the arbitrary head of the Colony. They are entitled to the protection of this House and to a voice in it and it should be the Government's duty to see that they get fairer treatment.
I hope that the Financial Secretary will give the House an undertaking that the Bill is intended to give succour not only to the larger areas, which have numerous spokesmen in this House to support them, but to the small territories which have no one to take up the cudgels on their behalf.

8.36 p.m.

Sir E. Boyle: By leave of the House, I had thought of rising just after half-past eight to reply to some of the points raised during the last four hours, although I fully understand that some hon. Members might not want the debate to come to a conclusion yet. It is four hours since I last sat down, and a number of points have been raised.
I think the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) spoke with the approval of the whole House—and the point he made was taken up by a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice)—when he pointed out that the gap between the wealthier and the poorer nations was widening at the moment, and when he pointed out the very great moral importance of the whole question of overseas aid. From that time we have had a fairly wide-ranging debate, although this is a subject which we discuss so seldom in this House that I do not think any hon. Member will regret the fact that the debate has gone over a wide field. I certainly did not. Living, as I do, almost entirely on the two sides of Whitehall, it has been a great pleasure, as the Archbishop of Canterbury says, to travel through space, and to have an opportunity I have not had in this House for nearly eighteen months.
The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East asked what the Government are going to do on the question of aid, and went on to say that we should take our full share in what he called the Hoffman Plan. The figures for Government aid are quite striking. We have doubled our effort in the last two or three years. The Government were spending £75 million on aid in the financial year 1957–58. That rose to about £100 million in the financial year 1958–59, and in the last calendar year the total figure for Government aid was about £150 million.
I should like to make it absolutely clear to the right hon. Member and the House that there was nothing in my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget speech which suggested that the Government were going to change their policy in this matter. What my right hon. and learned


Friend said—and I have looked up the relevant passage—was:
Our commitments by way of grants to the Colonies and lending to underdeveloped and other countries are likely to continue to increase.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c.797.]
He made that point in the context of that part of his speech which dealt with the export trade. He was pointing out that there was no hope on the invisible side of the account of helping the visible side and no suggestion that we were going to cut commitments in the way of overseas aid.
The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East made other points to which I want to refer. He said that we should have a system of priorities over the whole field both in respect of Government and private investment. This question which I thought he was raising by implication of whether we should have more control over private investment overseas—[Interruption.] I thought that was the implication of what the right hon. Member was saying. It has been raised quite fairly on a number of occasions in recent years. It has been raised in a well-known and important article by the economist, Mr. Robert Neild in the District Bank Review, and in an interesting exchange by the Leader of the Opposition and the present President of the Board of Trade in a debate in this House on 12th November, 1957.
All I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that I think one would have to consider the effect of any such system of priorities—he was envisaging the effect on the sterling area—on the whole political cohesion of the Commonwealth. I see that I said on this matter in 1959:
I hope that we shall not underrate the importance of private investment in the more developed parts of the Commonwealth, because I do not believe that we can keep the Commonwealth together as a great political force for good in the world without this flow of private capital to the whole of it".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th Dec., 1959; Vol 615, c.1686.]
I believe there is some truth in that. When one is looking at this from the economic point of view and the broad humanitarian point of view we are considering, obviously it is the underdeveloped parts of the Commonwealth that we have naturally most in mind, but I am a little inclined to question whether

we would keep the Commonwealth today as a political unit without some flow of private capital from this country to the Whole of it.
The right hon. Member made an important point when he said that we should have not just a Secretary for Technical Co-operation, but a Minister for aid. He or some other hon. Member, I think it was the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman), contrasted the proposal in this Bill with the speech made by President Kennedy. I make this point to the House. Do not let us forget the implications of the fact that, as an hon. Member poinetd out, we still have the remnants of a Colonial Empire while the United States has not. There are still more than thirty Colonial Territories left. I suggest that in these circumstances our position is a different one.
The Colonial Secretary must remain responsible for the thirty colonial countries which are still left. I should have thought that he is the Minister who must decide priorities in the way of aid. I consider that if we were to have a Secretary not merely for Technical Co-operation, but also who considered questions of aid for the remnants of the Colonial Empire, he would have to become simply, as it were, the office boy of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It is for that reason that I am doubtful whether it can be right for us in this country to have a Minister for aid. I think there are aspects of aid which must remain the responsibility of the Colonial Secretary.
The right hon. Member went on to make another point with which I very much agree. He raised the question whether the new Department might result in excessive consultation among officials in the new Department with officials in the existing overseas Departments. I quite agree about that danger. I should have said that it was one of the principal responsibilities of the new Secretary when appointed—whoever he may be—and the Director-General to see that it does not happen too much. It is obviously a danger and certainly one of the most important dangers to be overcome when considering the working of the new Department.
The right hon. Member also asked a question about Nigeria, and that was


taken up by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) in a very impressive speech. The right hon. Member asked why Nigeria rejected the Overseas Service Aid Scheme. He seemed to suggest that Nigeria disliked paying interest on Commonwealth assistance loans and that for that reason she rejected even grant aid under this scheme. The answer, I am told, is that Nigeria quite definitely rejected this scheme for her own political reasons and not the reasons which the right hon. Member implied. It was quite definitely political reasons concerning which I do not think it would be proper for this House to speculate. An essential feature of the scheme is that it is entirely voluntary for any territory to join on its own decision. Like the right hon. Member, I very much regret the decision, but to the best of my knowledge—and I should not like to mislead the House—there was no question of rejecting it because Nigeria disliked paying interest on Commonwealth assistance loans after gaining independence.

Mr. Marqnand: This is perhaps an unfair question, and if an answer is not possible, I apologise for it. Have any other territories similarly rejected the Overseas Service Scheme?

Sir E. Boyle: No. I have taken advice from another part of the House and the answer, quite definitely, is "No". I think that on a question of that kind it is fair to use that technique.
I come now to what I thought was the admirable speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney). I should like to make two comments on what he said. Incidentally, he told me that he would not be able to attend for the whole of the debate, as he had an important engagement at 8 o'clock. He raised the highly important point of how we are to get more investment in Africa. He rightly mentioned the fears of would-be investors in Africa that they would not be able to remit their profits, and also the fear of what he fairly called creeping nationalisation. I should have thought that it was absolutely clear that if there is to be a continuing level of investment in Africa there must be, so to speak, a reasonable code of conduct where investors are concerned.
Speaking for myself, I very much hope that the international organisations—the World Bank, for instance—might be able to help us here by bringing some influence to bear on those who may soon be responsible for economic policy in Africa. I cannot help feeling that it may be rather easier for them to bring influence to bear on African Finance Ministers than it may be for ourselves or some other individual countries.
I was interested, too, in my hon. Friend's remark that production in America could be greater than it is. I think his argument about production in America is really the answer to Professor Galbraith's famous thesis about the affluent society. In my view, Professor Galbraith has made a first-class case in his book for the view that America needs a public sector of some size in its economy. I do not agree with his view that higher production in an affluent society soon reaches its desirable limit, and I do not agree precisely for the reason which my hon. Friend suggested—that if agricultural production gets very considerably above the total of domestic needs, surely it ought not to be beyond the wit of man to find some means whereby the surplus agricultural production can be used for the benefit of less fortunate countries elsewhere.
The hon. Member for Northfield spoke fairly warmly on the subject and made a perfectly fair point about the Bill being inadequate. I was very much impressed with his remark that within the course of the next decade the mixed economies and the free societies of the Western world have to show that Communism is unnecessary. I very much agree with him. It seems to me that we can all too easily in Britain forget just how strong the appeal of Communism can be to many of the new countries.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: St. Helena?

Sir E. Boyle: Not necessarily St. Helena, but to a great many other countries as well. I felt this appeal very strongly myself when in the Czech Pavilion at the Brussels Exhibition. Going up to the exhibition I saw on the wall a very impressive hymn to man on the theme that man has had a bad deal in the past and deserves a better deal in the future. While I share the mistrust of the economist, up to a point, of the hon. Member for Oldham, West, and


sympathise with the agnosticism of the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Dr. A. Thompson), do not let us underrate the importance of taking correct economic decisions and working the economic system as well as we can, because it can be of enormous importance to the whole world. I take note of the hon. Gentleman's specific points about the territory from which he has just come, which he knows so well.
My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe), who has very kindly come here from another engagement to listen to me, raised a number of questions, not all of which I can answer tonight. I was interested at the start of his remarks when he asked how much any of us are really prepared to forgo our living standards. Frankly, I believe that few people would be happy about cutting our road programme or our hospital building programme in order to have more to give or lend abroad. On the other hand, I believe it is right that we should have firm budgetary policies, and perhaps not quite such a rapid increase in consumer spending year by year at home, in order to be able to afford a good balance of payments and a higher level of capital investment at home and more capital investment overseas. I would draw a distinction there between capital spending and consumer spending. I think that that view would be acceptable today to the overwhelming majority of hon. Members.
My hon. Friend asked me about the relations of the new Department of Technical Co-operation with existing Departments, and in particular he asked me about education and about the British Council. Let me try to make this point about the relation of the new Department with existing Departments and with other bodies as reasonably clear as I can. The new Department of Technical Co-operation will be dealing with such a very wide range of work that its responsibilities must border on those of a large number of existing Departments and the British Council as well. Broadly—this is my answer to my hon. Friend—it will stand in just the same relationship to those Departments as the overseas Departments do in regard to technical assistance work at present. Naturally, there may arise between any two Departments a need for marginal adjustments

of responsibility from time to time. But it is not in general intended that the creation of the new Department should alter the functions and external relations of Departments other than the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office.
So far as the funds of the British Council are concerned, the British Council will continue to get grants in aid from the Overseas Departments; that is to say, just as now. It will not get any grant in aid from the new Department of Technical Co-operation. On the other hand, I can conceive it quite possibly happening that the British Council might be able to help the new Department in some way by procuring some teachers for the new Department. I can imagine that these relations between the British Council and the new Department might well spring up. In that case, the new Department would, naturally enough, reimburse the British Council for its work. However, so far as I know, there is no reason why there need be any major change in the situation of the British Council under the new relationship. Given good will and co-operation, I am sure that no serious problems need arise here.
The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) made a very fair point, which was taken up by some other hon. Members, when he asked whether the new Department will be able to consider new ways of doing things and to initiate new ideas. Most certainly, the answer is "Yes". There is no suggestion that the new Department should do exactly the same things in the same way as has been done by the existing overseas Departments. Most certainly, the new Department can adopt new ideas. There is, however, a danger—I felt it during the thoughtful speech of the hon. Member—of the new Department becoming a little too much of a welfare department, dealing simply with personal cases. One must keep a reasonable balance between the individual case work and the rather wider questions of policy.
I listened with great pleasure to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher). I agree with his commendation of the speech by Prince Philip about the importance of managers and engineers. The hon. Member for East Ham, North rightly


spoke of the relief of poverty in underdeveloped lands as one of the greatest moral challenges—I believe that the hon. Member described it as the greatest moral challenge—of our time. The hon. Member spoke of the importance of bringing more people to Britain for training in skills which would be valuable in their own country when they returned. I very much agree with him. Do not, however, let us think entirely of what I would call engineering and technical skills. The hon. Member for Oldham, West, in an interjection, reminded us, rightly, of a number of people from overseas who are studying law in British educational institutions.

Mr. Hale: And politics.

Sir E. Boyle: Politics can be less of a skilled occupation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) rightly pointed out the importance of the greater use of expertise and drew attention to the danger of inability to use capital aid when one has it. I was glad that he echoed my own remarks about the danger always of wanting to see too many spectacular developments in the capital field when, possibly, a wide range of less spectacular developments might be of greater value.
The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) raised a number of questions, not all of which I can answer tonight. I have, however, taken a note of the points raised by the hon. Member and I will, if I may, write to him within a few days. The hon. Member, too, stressed the importance of the new Ministry having ideas and developing techniques for getting these studies over. I also wholly share his view that the provision of technical assistance should not be a matter for this country alone among Commonwealth countries, but should be a responsibility shared among other members of the Commonwealth as well.
My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) raised the question of the importance of languages. I once disgraced myself by speaking to the Welsh Joint Committee and speaking to a Welsh audience about the importance of languages, including Chinese. I was told that there was only

one language to which I should have referred when speaking in Wales. Obviously, however, my hon. Friend was right about this.
I was interested in his remark that the new Minister should not take too much upon himself. In any Department, the Minister has sometimes to trust his own judgment, and that may be the case in the new Department, too. Circumstances may arise when there is scarce material to go round and a great many people are clamouring for a small number of people of rare and scarce ability. Sometimes, the Minister may have to take an arbitrary view, his own view. That is why he is there. We have to accept that today we have a rather more purposive system of government than we had a generation ago.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West spoke about civil servants and said that he would like to have a young and fresh atmosphere in the work of the Department. One must remember the great importance not only of whoever is appointed as Secretary, but also his Director-General. I agree that it is extremely important that the new Department should be got off on the right foot and should show that it possesses initiative.
I was interested in the hon. Member's remark that it is not always an unmixed blessing to bring in heavy industry to under-developed territories. I speak subject to correction and I may be wrong, but I sometimes think that, in many of the newer countries, the gap between the more developed and the less developed parts of the country is every bit as striking as the gap between the wealthier and the poorer countries. Reading, for example, Mr. Crankshaw on the subject of Russia, one gets a strong impression of the difference between the living standards in Moscow and those to be found only, perhaps, 100 or even 50 males away. At the same time, I cannot quite agree with the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs when he speaks about the mystique of industrialisation. Obviously, this is far too big a subject to debate now, but when one is considering living standards and the importance of the greater range of freedom and opportunity that goes with rises in living standards, it is remarkable how the importance of industrialism keeps on breaking into one's mind.
I have mentioned to the hon. Member the example of schools in rural areas. Is it not true in Britain, however, that few people are ready to live and work in a rural area unless they get most of the benefits and amenities of modern civilisation? It is, obviously, much easier in Britain to get farm labourers if there is adequate water and electricity. The idea that people can be satisfied by achieving a high standard of living in agriculture without a considerable amount of industrialisation may be a little misleading.
At the same time, there is one respect in which I agree with the hon. Member. Experience shows that it is a mistake, and a serious one, for an emergent country to put too much capital into industry and to neglect agriculture altogether. One then has the almost insuperably difficult job of how to feed the towns. That, which was a problem in mediaeval England, has been a problem in all emergent territories in modern times.

Dr. A. Thomson: I stress the importance of the basic utilities, such as electricity, water supply and transport, in modern agriculture. I do not deny that we cannot have the one without the other. I was thinking, however, of other kinds of secondary and tertiary industrialisation.

Sir E. Boyle: Obviously there comes a point when, I agree, the extra capital in industry is not so important, perhaps, as the same capital used for some other economic or social purpose.
The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) asked me about the question of the staff of the new Department. What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is this. It is likely that the staff will number something over 1,000, and about half the proposed staff, in number about 550, will come from the directorates of the Overseas Services and the Overseas Geological Surveys. Most of the Colonial Office advisers will be transferred, but a certain number of Colonial Office advisers, for example, the police adviser and the senior labour adviser, will remain in the Colonial Office.
As for the Vote, I cannot say more than I said in my opening speech. The total operational expenditure for which it will account to this House is expected to be in the region of £30 million a year.
As to the other point the hon. Gentleman raised about the Inter-University Council for Higher Education Overseas, I took careful note of this point, but I am afraid I cannot add to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said. This is typical of just the sort of question which the new Department will have to look into.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes), to whose speech I have already referred, did us all a service, I think, by reminding us of a number of countries, important but smaller and, I hope, not forgotten territories, which come within the ambit of the Colonial Office.
In conclusion I would only say to the House that I fully expected and make no complaint of the fact that many hon. Members would like to see a more radical proposal than this one. Of course, all of us have our own ideas of where we should like to see a larger proportion of the gross national product go, and I can quite understand that many hon. Members would like to see us do more in the way of aid and devote a larger share of our national resources to this problem; but I would say that within their narrow limits, which the Government do not pretend to be wide limits, the proposals in this Bill justify themselves. I believe that the new machinery can be made to work perfectly well, and I commend this Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Committee Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — DEPARTMENT OF TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).

[Major Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the establishment of a Department of Technical Co-operation under the charge of a Minister of the Crown, it is expedient to authorise the


payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of an annual salary not exceeding three thousand, seven hundred and fifty pounds payable to the Minister in charge of the said Department and of the expenses of that Minister, including the salaries or remuneration payable to any officers and servants appointed by him.—[Sir E. Boyle.]

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — HYDE PARK (UNDERGROUND PARKING) BILL

Not amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.

Clause 1.—(POWER TO SECURE PROVISION OF PARKING FACILITIES UNDER HYDE PARK.)

9.4 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, at the end to insert:
Provided that any such grant shall be subject to the conditions specified in the Schedule (Conditions of grant) to this Act.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): I think that it would be for the convenience of the House to discuss with this Amendment the hon. and learned Member's new Schedule, as the new Schedule is not to be discussed separately.

CONDITIONS OF GRANT

1. In this Schedule "the facilities" means the facilities and the services mentioned in subsection (1) of section one of this Act; "the grantee" means the person or persons to whom interests or rights are granted under the said section; "the gross takings" means the gross takings in respect of the provision of the facilities and includes—

(a) takings in cash;
(b) takings by way of credit given to any person;
(c) what would have been cash takings or takings by way of credit, but for any trade or other discount, allowed to any person; and
(d) the value of takings by way of any other valuable consideration;

"the Minister" means the Minister of Transport; and the phrases "the cost of construction", "the costs of operation" and "the proper amount" have the meanings attributed to them respectively in paragraphs 3, 4 and 9 of this Schedule.

2. Not more than one grant shall be made by virtue of the said subsection (1):

Provided that:—

(a) a grant may be made to more than one person jointly and may include such provision

as appears suitable to the Minister for the apportionment between persons of the functions of the grantee; and
(b) in the event of the termination of an interest, whether by expiration, revocation or otherwise howsoever, the Minister may grant that interest with such modifications, if any, as are required by the termination to a person or persons other than the original grantee, so however that no such grant shall be for a term extending beyond a period of ninety-nine years beginning with the passing of this Act.

3. The grantee shall procure such works to be carried out as are from time to time agreed between the grantee and the Minister to be requisite or convenient for the provision and maintenance of the facilities. The costs of and incidental to the carrying out of such works, as paid or incurred by the grantee, are herein called "the costs of construction".

4. The grantee shall procure the operation and management of the said works for the provision of the facilities. The costs of and incidental to such operation and management, as paid or incurred by the grantee, are herein called "the costs of operation".

5. For the purposes of the foregoing paragraphs and subject to the following provisions of this Schedule the grantee with the consent of the Minister may grant such sub-leases, licences or other rights and on such conditions as appear to the grantee to be requisite or convenient and with the like consent and with the consent of the Council of the City of Westminster (unless that Council is the grantee) may impose such charges on users of the facilities as appear appropriate.

Nothing in the foregoing paragraphs of this Schedule shall have effect to dispense with any permission or consent required under the Town and Country Planning Acts, 1947 to 1959, or under any other enactment (including this Act) or under any instrument made pursuant to an enactment.

7. The grantee shall account annually to the Minister in such form and on such date as the Minister may direct and the accounts so directed shall distinguish, as regards expenditure and receipts, between capital and revenue.

8. The consideration payable by the grantee to the Minister (whether or not it also includes a capital payment or an annual rent) and the terms of any grants, contracts or arrangements made by the grantee in exercise of his powers under the foregoing paragraph 5 shall be such that after the deduction or retention of the proper amount out of the gross takings the Minister shall receive such share (not being less than one-half) of the resulting balance as the Treasury may determine.

9. The proper amount in relation to an accounting period means the sum of the following:—

(a) the costs of operation, including such supervisory and managerial remuneration as the Minister may with the consent of the Treasury from time to time agree with the grantee or, in default of agreement or of any relevant provision in the grant, determine, and also including any rent paid to the Minister;


(b) an amount sufficient to amortise the costs of construction, calculated over the term of the grant made by the Minister and so calculated on the basis applicable at the date of the grant to the amortisation of borrowing by local authorities from the Public Works Loan Commissioners;
(c) eight per cent. of the last-mentioned amount; and
(d) any deficiencies (with interest thereon) brought forward under the provisions of the next following paragraph.

10. If in any accounting period the gross takings are less than the proper amount, the deficiency and any similar deficiencies for previous periods shall (with interest at the rate charged at the end of the period on borrowings for a term of five years by local authorities from the Public Works Loan Commissioners) be carried forward into the revenue account of the following period.

11. The Minister shall lay before Parliament the accounts rendered to him under this Schedule.

Mr. Mitchison: I am much obliged to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
The Amendment, which is to add a proviso to subsection (1) of Clause 1, in effect incorporates that rather long new Schedule as to the conditions of grant. The Bill, as the Minister told us on Second Reading, is an enabling Bill, and it enables him to grant interests and rights over land in Hyde Park so far as he thinks it necessary or expedient to do so to provide parking facilities, facilities for fueling cars and other facilities and services such as are, in his opinion, commonly provided—what I might call accessory facilities. That leaves the matter very much at large.
The Bill has had a rather curious history, which I mention to show the background of this Amendment. When it came before the House on Second Reading, we were told by the Minister that the proposed to grant a lease on a competitive basis fox the purpose of building and operating the garage. By the garage, he meant the underground parking place below Hyde Park. He pointed out in column 1016 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for 1st February:
The Bill would permit me to grant such a lease either to a local authority or to a private developer. Discussions have already taken place with Westminister City Council, but at the moment it seems unlikely that the Council would be interested in taking a head lease.
When we came to the Committee stage, he told us that he had come to agreement in principle, though not, of course, in detail, with the Westminister City

Council, and we had to reshape somewhat our attitude to the Bill. That is the present position.
On Second Reading, the right hon. Gentleman also pointed out twice that the project he had in mind—the operation of a garage at this key site, as he put it, might well prove lucrative. He said in column 1017:
In that event, we shall, naturally, take steps to see that the Government participate in the profits.
The right hon. Gentleman touched in the same subject in the next column, in which he said:
But it must be a very fair deal from the Government's point of view, because ultimately, when the heavy capital cost has been recovered, this will be a key site and will be lucrative."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1961; Vol. 633, cc. 1016–18.]
The object of this Amendment is to ensure that the lucre that is to be obtained from the granting of interests in what is a Royal Park—Crown land subject to statutory restrictions, which requires the Bill to enable that grant to be made at all—shall finally accrue to the Government, and not to any contractor or developer.
When I say the Government, I must mention, also, the position of Westminster City Council. That is the parking authority, and it is in many ways, in our view, the most suitable authority to deal with a matter of this sort. Since the two right hon. Gentlemen primarily concerned, the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Works, have united with apparently little difficulty in disclaiming any intention or power to run the garage themselves, in these circumstances, all that the Amendment which I am now proposing does, or can do, is to provide that half the lucre goes to the right hon. Gentleman; and we must leave it to Westminster City Council and himself, as the responsible Minister, to see that the other half goes, as I hope it would go, to the Westminster City Council.
What I am concerned with is the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman to contractors in the matter. I think that the simplest way in which I can deal with it is to go shortly through the Schedule, which contains the meat of the proposals, say what it is that we suggest, and point out as I go that, though this is a rather long Schedule, and may appear at first


sight to be rather tightly drawn, it is, in fact, very much the opposite. It gives the right hon. Gentleman ample power to treat the contractor very fairly indeed, provided only that at the end of the day the lucre, which is what I call the ultimate proceeds, the equity of the transaction, remains with the Minister and does not go to some enterprising contractor.
Since the grant in this case is a very big one which requires a Bill to authorise it, it is made by a Minister who has no connection whatever with Hyde Park except what he assumes under the Bill to give away what he does not possess, and he is doing it because he is performing a public function. This is, therefore, no ordinary grant and it is signalised as something out of the ordinary by the very terms of the Bill. There are in the proposed Schedule definitions which for the moment I shall leave except to refer to the new definition of "gross takings", and "gross takings" is a phrase taken out of the Minister's own contracts in another connection. I think that that has some bearing on what we are talking about.
The Minister has a habit of building large motorways all over the country and on these motorways he provides service stations. He does it by arranging for the contractor to do the work and to pay a fixed rent or a percentage, or a combination of the two. That is all very well when one is dealing with service stations on motorways but, for the reasons I have already outlined, we are dealing, in Hyde Park, with a rather different matter.
A paragraph in the Schedule contains provisions on one side of the picture for making one grant instead of making half-a-dozen, which, I suppose, would be technically impossible in the language of the Bill, and on the other side of the picture for allowing the grantee to share his powers and make the necessary arrangements. The third paragraph deals with what are called costs of construction which, surprisingly, after they have been defined remain the costs of construction. They include digging the garage and, in this case, its maintenance. Then we have the costs of operation. Again, by attempting to obscure the issue by saying what they are, we come back to the fact that they are the costs of

operations—the cost of managing and working the garage, the petrol pumps and the ancillary facilities.
The fifth paragraph provides for the machinery of the matter by giving the grantee power to grant sub-leases, licences, and so on. It contains, slipped in at the end, what I trust the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport will welcome warmly. It is a provision that, though he may dislike the burden put upon him, the Minister should be responsible for the charges imposed by the grantee on the users of the garage. The Minister is performing a public duty and it is right and proper that he should see that the grantee who is given power to impose charges should impose only reasonable charges.
The right hon. Gentleman, with his peculiar faith in private enterprise, believes, as I gather from what was said on Second Reading, that, prima facie, what Selfridges does is right and reasonable, but whatever his views he should discharge his responsibilities by saying that the person to whom the grant is made is not the sole person who should impose charges on the people who use the garage. They are, I believe, the class of people known as "essential long term parkers", E.L.Ps., people who have to come into London and leave their cars for some considerable time underground in Hyde Park. We all have considerable sympathy for them. I will not go into all that now, but, clearly, the least the Minister can do is to see that the charges are reasonable.
9.15 p.m.
Paragraph 6 preserves the need for planning permission, which I think is right, and paragraph 7 provides for annual accounts. Then we come more particularly to the meat of the matter. The grant, as the Minister told us on Second Reading, is to be in the form of a lease. The lease implies rent. It implies, as lawyers would say, some consideration or another. This provides that the consideration under that grant and the terms of any arrangements made by the grantee—those are the arrangements made under paragraph 5—
shall be such that after the deduction or retention of the proper amount out of the gross takings the Minister shall receive such share (not being less than one-half) of the resulting balance as the Treasury may determine.


I said, "one half", but we know that the Treasury, if it scents some lucre about—and we were told twice by the right hon. Gentleman in a comparatively short speech how lucrative this is to be—might conceivably want a larger share. That, I think, is a matter in which I would not wish to interfere.
I repeat:
…shall receive such share (not being less than one-half) of the resulting balance as the Treasury may determine.
Clearly, all that will depend on what is the proper amount to be allowed. The proper amount was defined in the following paragraph in this way—first of all, the costs of operation. These will include the supervisory and managerial salaries and percentages, whatever they may be, that are reasonable in the circumstances. Their reasonableness is to be ensured by the Minister agreeing with the grantee and doing so with Treasury consent from time to time, or, if they cannot get an agreement, then something has to be fixed by the Minister himself.
I can see no difficulty about this. I do not know whether the Westminster City Council, so far as it may be concerned, and the Minister, so far as he may be concerned, intend to have one person to do the actual work of excavation and incur what are called the costs of construction, and whether they intend that same person to go on with the costs of operation. It may be that for this purpose some arrangement will be made by the Westminster City Council; I do not know. All I am concerned with is that when we come down to the actual cost of operation they should be the proper costs of running the place and they should be a reasonable amount for supervision or management, however one likes to put it. I can find no possible objection to that. One is always blind to one's own faults; at least, I am.
Secondly, what about the costs of construction? What is suggested about those—and this is in paragraph 9 (b)—is that they should be amortised year by year—this, I imagine, is good practice both officially and I suppose even in commercial circles—and that the amortisation should be over the period of the grant. There has to be a rate of interest for the purpose, and the rate of interest should be the rate charged to local authorities by the Public Works Loan Commissioners at the time when

the grant is made. That seems to me to provide for them.
Then it is said that those who do the construction must be allowed a proper remuneration for the work they do, and on that basis they are to be allowed 8 per cent. of the annual amortisation charge. I must say I see the point of the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I think that 8 per cent. is rather good.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Good for whom?

Mr. Mitchison: Good for the people who are doing the work and are getting that rate of interest. Be that as it may, there are other instances, and what I am concerned with is not so much whether it should be 8, 7 or 6 per cent. but that the final lucre should not rest with the people who have done the construction or with the people who do the actual management.
The next two paragraphs, in effect, provide for this. There is little doubt, I should have thought, as a matter of common sense, that at the beginning of the operation it will not be very profitable. For the first year or two, however, we deal with the accounting, it is, at any rate, possible, let me put it that way, that there will be no great profit. This simply provides for carrying forward the losses and in due course writing them off in the annual accounts. It is perfectly simple and, I trust, perfectly clear.
Finally, there is the provision that the Minister should lay the accounts of "the grantee", the accounts which will contain all this stuff, if I may put it that way, before Parliament. They will be, of course, annual accounts. That is the intention.
I should like to point out to the House that this does not preclude some arrangement about rent, which may be broadly similar to the kind of arrangement that is made in respect of the service stations on the motorways. This is something that goes beyond that. We have to leave it to the Minister and to the Treasury, which takes a very proper interest in these matters, to see that the final result in the annual payments is not excessive. But it does not tie the right hon. Gentleman to any particular form of agreement with the contractors or with "the grantee", as he is called


here; it simply lays down the conditions which must be fulfilled.
If this Schedule were accepted by the right hon. Gentleman as, undoubtedly, he will accept it, the only result would be not that he would be cramped in his negotiations or arrangements, but that at the end of it if this were, as he confidentally expects it to be, a lucrative proposition, the benefits would accrue to the public. He is performing a public duty in this matter and he is dealing with a public site of a somewhat unusual and special character. I cannot believe that it is right, in these circumstances, so to arrange the Bill or the Schedule in it that the final result was that the gross takings went to the contractor. I think it right, in a case of this sort, where we are dealing with Crown property and acting in the interest of the public, that the final result, the ultimate lucre, should come to the responsible Minister of the Crown. That is the object of the Amendment.
No private Member has the facilities which, properly and rightly, are open to the Government, and if the Minister proceeds to pick this Schedule into bits on small and niggling points he will do something which I do not expect him to do and which will serve no useful purpose. What he has to answer is the substantial point: will he do what he has done in connection with service stations on motorways, allow the contractor to reap the ultimate fruits of the enterprise, or will he see that he gets the ultimate profits—in this case half of them, because of the position of the Westminster City Council?
That is the broad question which has to be answered. I repeat for the third time, with my apologies to the House for doing so, what I believe to be the common sense and the justice of the matter. When a Minister of the Crown is taking action which is required and can be justified only by a public need; when, for that purpose, he is dealing with public property of a special kind; when, for that purpose, he intends to mess about with a resort of the public such as Hyde Park, and intends to do things which require some justification and which we in the House nevertheless believe should be done, then be must see

that the public, who are carrying the burden of this, and for whom it is being done, receive the final proceeds of the transaction. At whatever rate the service charges are fixed, the ultimate beneficiary should be the public.
I urge the right hon. Gentleman to get out of the contractors' frame of mind which, from time to time, seems to afflict him like a political disease and to treat this matter as it ought to be treated—as something which arises out of his position as Minister of Transport.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): I assure the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) that I do not intend to approach his Amendment and the new Schedule in the niggling frame of mind which he thought I might have. It is true, as he acknowledges, that there are certain drafting defects in the text of the Schedule, but I propose to deal with the issue which he raised on the basic arguments.
It is clear to anyone who has followed our proceedings both on Second Reading and in Standing Committee that the Opposition's attitude throughout has been to ensure that if private interests are to run the garage, whoever builds it and whatever may be the leasing arrangements, the profit which these private interests are allowed to make must be limited to a reasonable figure. The Opposition say—and rightly—that this is public property, this is Hyde Park, this is a most valuable site in the centre of London and therefore, quite apart from any issue of amenities, which is dealt with elsewhere in the Bill, there must be no question of profiteering.
Perhaps they are a little encouraged in this attitude by a misunderstanding, which has been repeated tonight by the hon. and learned Member, of what my right hon. Friend said on Second Reading about the possibility that the operation of the garage would be lucrative. It is true that my right hon. Friend said:
Nevertheless, we shall bear in mind that the operation of a garage at this key site may well prove lucrative".
With respect, I think that the hon. and learned Member and his hon. Friends have not given equal weight to what my


right hon. Friend said in the next sentence, because he continued:
In that event, we shall, naturally take steps to see that the Government participate in the profits."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1961; Vol. 633, c.1016–17.]
If I may sum up what I conceive to be the attitude of the Opposition, it is that fetters must be placed upon the Minister's power of leasing and on the terms of the lease to ensure that the profit which comes into private hands as a result of the operation of the Bill is not excessive and also to ensure that the Exchequer receives any excess.
9.30 p.m.
If I may quote what the hon. and learned Member said on 1st February, on Second Reading, he summed it up in this way:
This is a case in which the Government might reasonably say to the contractor, We shall have the profits once you have made a reasonable return on a percentage basis on whatever you spend on doing the job for us'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1961; Vol. 633, c.1025.]
I do not think I am over-stating when I say that that has been the Opposition's attitude throughout. To achieve this end they moved a number of Amendments in Committee. Anyone who knows the hon. and learned Member will not be surprised that those Amendments, which bore traces of his own fair hand, exhibited various degrees of artistry and ingenuity. The fact is that they all had one common feature; they all restricted to a greater or lesser degree the Minister's freedom to negotiate with the potential lessees of this garage.
For example, at one stage an Amendment was moved that all the proceeds from the garage operation, other than the expenses and a fixed percentage on the capital, would have to be paid over to the Minister. Another Amendment said that the grant would have to be made to the Westminster City Council and no one else. Another Amendment said that it should be made to a local authority and not to a private interest. A further Amendment said that the terms of any lease would have to be approved by an affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
We now have the Schedule. I freely admit that it comes closer to our own position than did some of these earlier variants on the theme. It does not re

strict us in the choice of a grantee, nor does it prescribe Parliamentary control of the terms of the lease, nor does it reserve all the profit in the transaction to the Minister. But—and this is the essential point—it still refuses the Minister a free hand in the negotiation of the terms of the lease. This, I am afraid, we cannot accept, and that is why I cannot accept the Amendment.
I must therefore tell the House why we ask that the Minister should be given a free hand. In the Bill and in the whole of the operation we have two principal objectives, and in these objectives we are, I understand, fully supported by the hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends. The first is to get a good garage in being for public use as soon as we possibly can. The second is to get as good a bargain as we can for the public purse. Nothing divides the two sides of the House on these objectives. But to achieve these objectives, as we see it, our need is the maximum flexibility in negotiation. We cannot tell until the negotiations proceed further what sort of reaction we shall get. For example, we hope, as has been said before, to agree terms for a head lease with the Westminster City Council, but it is possible that we may not succeed. Terms that might be acceptable to private enterprise might not prove to be acceptable to a local authority, and vice versa. Again, terms that may be suitable for the first grant might not be suitable for subsequent grants which would fall to be made a good many years from now under conditions that none of us can now foresee. Again, until we actually test the market we shall not know precisely what length of lease is necessary.
As to the division of the profits—the financial terms, if I might so call them—there are two possible extremes. On the one hand, we might ask for a small ground rent and a substantial share of the profits—and this is the sort of thing that is outlined in this proposed new Schedule. On the other hand, we might ask for a large ground rent and a very much smaller share of the profits. In between those two extremes there are all manner of possible situations.
One might speculate at some length on the different variations possible, but in all these essential points—and this I want to impress on the hon. and learned


Gentleman—the Schedule, were we to accept it, would bind our hands. Let me explains how. As drafted paragraph 2 (b) limits the duration of the power to lease to 99 years or less. Paragraphs 8 and 9 taken together would bind us to receive at least half of what I might call the net revenue; that is to say, the gross takings less the cost of operation, the rent, amortisation provisions and an 8 per cent. profit. The deficiencies are to be carried forward from year to year at the Public Works Loan Board rate of interest.
I am advised that it is most unlikely that the Westminster City Council or a private developer would agree to such terms. If that were the case, if the proposed Schedule were added to the Bill, and if we were bound in this way to offer only those terms then, should we find that nobody would accept those terms, we would be in a very great difficulty. We would have only two alternatives; either to come back to this House and ask for amending legislation—with all the consequent loss of time that that would entail—or to have no garage at all. I must, therefore, advise the hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends that on that ground alone we must resist this Amendment. It is true that there are various minor drafting faults, and I shall not take up time in mentioning them.
That is not the only ground on which we object to what is proposed. It is true that this project for an underground garage at Hyde Park is in some respects unusual. We are dealing with a Royal Park, and there must therefore be special provisions and safeguards for amenities, but once that point of amenity is taken care of—and I claim, and I do not think that the other side disagrees, that the Bill does protect the amenities—in essence this is nothing more or less than another letting by the Crown.
A number of precedents and examples of similar Crown letting were given in Committee. I shall not traverse them again, but the fact that this site is a valuable one is not something that, in our view, requires the type of treatment proposed by the new Schedule. Much Crown land is extremely valuable. I remember being told a couple of years

ago, when I had somewhat limited responsibility for civil aviation matters, that the most valuable land in the whole of the United Kingdom was not, as one might imagine, in the centre of the City of London but the central terminal area of London Airport. That is the case.
In all of these lettings of Crown land, Government Departments, with the watchdogs of the Treasury behind them, are trusted by Parliament to fix the best terms that they can for the public purse, and Parliament—the House of Commons in particular—through the Public Accounts Committee has always the power to call the Department to account if it thinks that the Department has behaved improperly. I suggest to the House that these safeguards have always been proved to be sufficient in the past and can therefore be treated as sufficient for this project.
I come to the central point of the argument, and it is a point relevant not only to this discussion but to everything that has gone before, both in the Standing Committee and on Second Reading. This is an enabling Bill. Its purpose is to give the Minister of Transport limited powers for letting land in Hyde Park. If the House decides to write into this enabling Bill all manner of controls over the Minister's powers of negotiation, I must frankly and truthfully warn hon. Members that it will jeopardise the prospect of obtaining the best results for the public purse. That is one of the objectives with which the Opposition as well as ourselves are in sympathy.
If, of course, the Opposition say that they just do not trust my right hon. Friend and his Department to play fair with the public interest, or if they really and honestly think that on some vague ideological grounds he wants to give some large and unconscionable profit to private enterprise, we shall not only have to deny that that is a favourable and fair imputation but will also have to ask our hon. Friends to support us at the appropriate time.
I do not, however, honestly think that that is what the hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends really want to say. I do not think they really go as far as that. When it somes to the point, I think that they will accept that we wish to do right by the public interest, and that for these reasons we should not


have our hands tied in the negotiations on which we are about to embark. If, on consideration, the hon. and learned Gentleman comes to the same conclusion, I suggest that he considers withdrawing the Amendment. If not, we shall have to resist it.

Mr. John Diamond: I was not one of those who had the good fortune to be a member of the Standing Committee which considered the Bill, and I am, therefore, unable to know precisely what was said. I hope that I shall not weary the House if, by mischance, I refer in principle to one or two matters which were fully argued at that time.
That is inevitable and, presumably, on Report it is understood that there are those who cannot serve on every Committee, and that is part of the reason for having this part of our procedure. Listening with a fresh and completely unbiassed and objective mind, I was very disappointed by the Parliamentary Secretary's reply. He dealt with certain arguments relating to the Schedule and the Amendment, but not with the other side of the case.
I do not have HANSARD with me, but I understand that on Second Reading the Minister undertook that in certain circumstances the Government would participate in the profits. The Minister is unable to say for certain that the profits will not be of such dimensions that those circumstances ought not to apply. Nobody can say at this stage that whatever arrangement is made may not be too cautious and too conservative and based on forecasts of traffic development which might not mature, or which might be totally inadequate, but very considerable profits might result from a lucrative arrangement.
Nobody, even with the greatest possible judgment and ability to forecast, can say for certain that those circumstances will not arise, putting it very modestly indeed. We therefore thought that in that situation in either the first or future grants—and that does not affect the principle—considerable profits might accrue to the contractor. The Minister said, on Second Reading, that the Government would participate in the profits in those circumstances.
That is not an enormous Bill, and although I have not studied it in detail I

cannot find any provision giving legal effect to the Minister's undertaking. Nor can I find any provision in which the Minister is limited in any way as to the kinds of terms which he can impose and the way he shall approach the contract. In short, I can find nothing in the Bill which limits the Minister in any way.
It is going far too far for the Parliamentary Secretary to resist the Amendment just because my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), whom I support in this matter, wants certain provisions which might not be appropriate for every possible contractor and in which there might have to be a slight variation—a contractor preferring 49 per cent. instead of 50 per cent. With his typical elasticity and breadth of mind, my hon. and learned Friend would be willing to adjust from 50 per cent. to 49 per cent., but that does not affect the principle of what we are discussing.
What we are saying is that there is a prospect, or at least a possibility, of large profits being made on a Government letting or grant as a result of limiting the rights of individuals, namely, the nation. As it is impossible for human beings to be sure of what will result, the only way to deal with the matter is to share the profits. But the Bill does not mention sharing profits in any way. The Parliamentary Secretary's arguments were totally unconvincing and in some ways irrelevant. I do not understand his complaint about the period of ninety-nine years, for that is mentioned in Clause I itself, and I do not understand why he criticised my hon. and learned Friend for repeating words already used in the Bill.
9.45 p.m.
The Government are requiring a completely free hand to do what they like and I do not see why they have consulted Parliament at all, except to get the powers. I do not see how the Minister regards his position and responsibility vis-à-vis Parliament.
The example of London Airport has been quoted, and it so happens that I was concerned with this matter. London Airport was run by a Government Department and had certain facilities to let and grants to make—I am referring especially to a news theatre. So as to


get the greatest competition, it advertised the fact that facilities were to let. It was suggested—and I know that it was because before I was a Member I wrote the letter suggesting it—that the proper way to deal with the grant was for the Ministry to retain the profits out of running the news theatre. That suggestion was turned down, presumably on the ground that the Ministry did not feel that it could accept a contract in which the contractor carried out his duties for a fixed sum, as we now propose, the Ministry retaining the profits.
It is no use the Parliamentary Secretary quoting that as an example, for that is an example of precisely what we fear, namely, that terms will be made deliberately preventing the accrual of a portion of the profits to the people from whom the rights and amenities and enjoyment of facilities have been taken away. The Parliamentary Secretary's reply was totally unsatisfactory and does not meet the main complaint that there is nothing in the Bill in any way to limit the Minister.

Mr. Norman Cole: I wish to support my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in rejecting this Amendment. This is a new project to put an underground garage under a Royal Park. If we were to try to exhaust all the possible business alternatives—and this is a business proposition—and put them in various Schedules as instructions to the Minister we would have a Bill of about 50 pages. To attempt to include one constricting Schedule clearly to tie the hands of the Minister is a quite impossible situation.
If we were to pass this Schedule and attach it to the Bill not only might the contractor lose in the long run, but so would the Minister, because we would so limit the number of people who would look at the proposition. I doubt very much whether Westminster City Council would take it on. I certainly should think twice about it. We would be saying to the public that they should take on a very visionary project. I do not think that there would be many takers.
There is sometimes in this House and among many people outside the attitude that the Government should say, "Heads I win, tails you lose." That will not do at all. No one wants to see a developer

getting a disproportionate amount of the profits. I am not supporting that in the slightest, but, on the other hand, I do not want to see anyone putting capital into venture and then having to ask after two or three years to be released from his lease because he is not making enough for it to be worth while. All these things could arise under a constricting Schedule and it would be a drawback to the Bill.
Over and above everything else, the one thing I would have expected from the Opposition, if they wanted to serve the public—and, after all, the purpose of the Bill is to provide off-street parking—would be to put handcuffs on the wrists of my right hon. Friend, and to include in this Schedule the maximum charge for cars in the garage. There is no mention of that. This Schedule starts nowhere and gets nowhere. I very much support the view that we should reject it. If we go into the Lobby, I should be happy to vote against it.
My right hon. Friend the Minister, of all members of the Government, has experience by which he can bargain for a good deal on behalf of the Government. I am prepared to trust my right hon. Friend, as a business man, to get the best possible deal for the Government while bearing in mind that, unless there is some livelihood to be made by other people, there will be no one to pay taxes.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I certainly hoped when I heard the very convincing case put from the Opposition Front Bench that the Government spokesman would announce acceptance of this proposed Schedule. Instead of that, we have had all sorts of pettifogging reasons against it which failed to answer what I thought were the absolutely convincing arguments of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). I hope that when we go into the Division Lobby hon. Members opposite will have second thoughts.
This, after all, is purely public enterprise and public initiative. This is an underground facility which, if it had not been for the fact that there is a publicly-owned park, it would not have been possible to develop. The park above being public and Crown property, I fail to see any logical reason why the benefits should not accrue to the public. The


difference between the two sides of the House is that we are public-minded and hon. Members opposite are contractor-minded. In my association with public life I have always found, in discussing such matters as are contained in this Schedule, whether in a town council, in a county council or in the House of Commons, that the contractor is hoping to make the best bargain for private vested interests while the Socialists are arguing for public enterprise.
The background of the Minister of Works is public contracting. I apologise, I mean the Minister of Transport. The Minister of Works has the background of landowning. The Minister of Transport has a land speculating background.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples) indicated dissent.

Mr. Hughes: I apologise if I have done the right hon. Gentleman an injustice, but I was aware that at one time when he spoke from the Opposition side of the House he was very enthusiastic about private contracting enterprise because he used to be associated with it. He is now a Minister of the Crown and I thought he would use his influence on the Government for the acceptance of this Schedule.
It is no good the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) pretending that there is to be any possibility of a loss in this enterprise. It is going to be a gold mine. Here will be garage facilities in the very heart of London which is crying out for those facilities. There are to be underground park facilities with a petrol filling station and ancillary services. Will there not be a profit, a very big profit, to be made out of the petrol filling station? Of course there will be. The vultures are there already. I submit that the House is perfectly entitled to insist that this Schedule should be put into operation.
Indeed, I am surprised at the Ministry of Works which is prepared to spend so much public money in other parts of London not very far away from the site of this underground garage. We have heard recently at Question Time about this. I wonder why the Minister of Works has not used this opportunity to say "Here we have this underground garage and a possibility of making a very big income for the Government,

in order to offset the balance on the expenditure which some of us think is unjustifiable not so very far away." We hear of the possibility of a return on capital of 8 per cent. Here at several points in this operation we have financial interests, contracting interests, oil and petrol vested interests and every other kind of harpy, vulture and parasite which preys on private enterprising. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Of course they do.
The more I have read this Schedule—I have studied it very carefully; I do not think I could have improved upon it if I had drafted it myself—the more reasonable it becomes to me. So I hope that when we vote on this matter there will be a revolution on the part of the publicly-spirited hon. Members opposite and that the Government will be forced to accept the Schedule.

Mr. Mitchison: I should like to reply to what the Government have said on this matter. First, let us be quite clear that there is no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman himself not only thinks that this may be a lucrative proposition but thinks that it will be. I should have thought that we could really count on that even without the right hon. Gentleman's assistance. He picked up confidence as he went along.
In column 1017 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Second Reading debate the right hon. Gentleman said only that it "may" well prove lucrative, but in column 1018, after a few more minutes of his own eloquence, he said:
But it must be a very fair deal from the Government's point of view, because ultimately, when the heavy capital cost has been recovered, this will be a key site"—
I should have thought that it was one already—
and will be lucrative. It must be a fair division between the Government and private enterprise."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1961; Vol. 633, c.1018.]
If Parliament is not allowed to intervene to say what a fair division between the Government and private enterprise is, then I submit that we are not doing our duty as a House. It is our business to see that there is a fair division, and it is not enough to pass an enabling Bill leaving a question of this sort, dealing with this particular piece of property, entirely within the discretion of the right hon. Gentleman.
When the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary gets up and says, "You will never find a contractor to do it on those terms", my first reply to him is that there is not a jot or tittle of evidence that he has ever tried, and he has had every opportunity of telling us so. Every time the Minister concerned gets up and says, "This is impossible", but never does he get up and say, "I have approached various persons on these lines, and they say that this is not good enough." If the Minister asks me to accept, as a matter of common sense, the proposition that nobody will incur the costs of construction when all he gets is an 8 per cent. return on his outlay, I find it very difficult indeed to accept it.
When one is further told that nobody will incur the costs of management un less he gets something more than what the Minister and the Treasury agree with him is reasonable remuneration for supervisory and managerial services, my reply is that I do not believe that businessmen are all quite such vultures as the Government would have us believe. We are talking about vultures tonight. The birds are topical. I simply say that I think that the Tory Party is not doing justice to the business community. Hon. Members opposite tell us that nobody will do any work for the Government unless he is—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood Adjourned.

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put, That the Procedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Marples.]

The House proceeded to a Division, and Mr. SPEAKER stated that he thought the Ayes had it; and, on his decision being challenged, it appeared to him that the Division was unnecessarily claimed, and he accordingly called upon the Members who supported and who challenged his decision successively to rise in their places, and he declared the Ayes had it, one Member only who challenged his decision having stood up.

Orders of the Day — HYDE PARK (UNDERGROUND PARKING) BILL

Question again proposed, That those words be there inserted in the Bill.

Mr. Mitchison: I was engaged in saying, with not unusual eloquence, that if the Government ask us to believe that nobody would undertake the work of construction or of management on the basis of getting a fair return by way of interest on his expenditure and fair payment for his managerial and supervisory purposes, I, for one, did not share the Tory Party's views about the business world and I did believe that it was possible to find people who would do it in that way. I am confirmed in that opinion in that no representative of the Government has ever told us that they have tried to find somebody on that basis and have failed.
Therefore, if that were the position, I should be happy and confident that the Government, did they so choose, could find a contractor on that basis. That, however, as I pointed out when moving the Amendment, is not the whole of the story. I have deliberately left room in the Amendment for the inclusion of a percentage to the contractor. I have left it to the Minister to deal with what that percentage should be. The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) obviously knows the Minister very well. He pointed out to us that the Minister could be trusted to deal with the contractor. I agree. I have left the Minister power to do so in the Amendment, subject only to the safeguard that the final lucre should go to the Crown and not to the contractor.
On the other hand, we were told that the right hon. Gentleman could not be trusted to fix the maximum charges. The suggestion was made that they should have been specified in the Amendment. I assure the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South—

Mr. Cole: What I said was that I should have thought it characteristic to have found such a point in the Schedule, not that I wanted to see it there at all.

Mr. Mitchison: That is a speculation about my character or the character of the Opposition which is a little broad for the purposes of the Amendment. All


I can say to the hon. Member and to the House is that we have left it, as, in my belief, we should, to the discretion of the Minister subject to a Treasury check in certain cases. That is the position.
Having heard what the Joint Parliamentary Secretary had to say and what was said in support of him and having listened to what was said in Committee, I remain of opinion that the only question between this side of the House and the benches opposite is whether the final lucre, which may be considerable and which the right hon. Gentleman thinks will be considerable, is to go to the contractor or to the Crown. There is nothing else. There is nothing that I can find in the Amendment to tie the right hon. Gentleman's hand, nor did the Joint Parliamentary Secretary point to anything.
The practice in the service stations, which I mentioned earlier, is often to take a percentage rate. There is nothing in the Amendment that would prevent a percentage rate, but the percentage is only a matter of 10 per cent. or 12 per cent., which was the highest figure in the instances given by the right hon. Gentleman in Committee. It is a quite small figure. We are asking, not merely that there should be a fair return—we agree to that; not merely that there should be proper remuneration for supervision and management—we agree to that—but also that at the end of the day the profits from dealing with Crown property in the public interest should go to the Government and to the people and not to a contractor.

Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill:—

The House proceeded to a Division; but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Ayes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Noes had it.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order. I should like to have your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on the way that you took the view of the House on the last two Questions. On the first occasion you asked those here in favour to rise in their places. I did so. I would like to ask whether my dissent could be recorded in the proceedings of the House.
My second point is this. I understood you to adopt a different procedure in the

second place, as compared with the procedure in the first place. I think that the new Schedule is a very good Schedule. I believe it to be an attempt to secure—

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, but I am not able to allow the hon. Member to argue the merits about this. I will listen to what he has to say about the point of order.

Mr. Hughes: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to have your guidance because these circumstances may arise again. I support the Opposition's official Amendment. So far as I can see I am the only one who is prepared to vote for it. As this situation is likely to be repeated I would submit that this is a most unprecedented situation. I was convinced by the arguments of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), who made an excellent speech and who completely convinced me.
Then I proceeded to what I thought would be additional arguments of my own which, I thought, would completely convince hon. Members opposite. Then I discover that I am the only person who is prepared to vote for the excellent new Schedule. In view of this procedure, which may be repeated, and as one procedure was adopted in the first place and a different proceeding adopted in the second, and as I am interested in the protection of private Members, I would ask you, since, in the last quarter of an hour, we have had two different procedures, which will be the proceeding of the House in future?

Mr. Speaker: I should like to express sympathy with the hon. Member for finding himself in a solitary state in supporting some proposition on the merits, but that, of course, is not a matter for me. What is for me is the choice of the procedure which should be adopted in certain circumstances. The House has conferred on me the power to say that a Division is unnecessarily claimed if, in my view, that is so. Without any discourtesy at all, I thought that the circumstances in which the hon. Member alone in the House rose to require a Division was an instance of that kind and I so declared, as a servant of the House. Being slightly an enemy of monotony, and the circumstances being at the first Division that there were no


Tellers on that side of the House, I did not mention the fact.
On the second occasion I relied upon the other limb, when there were no Tellers on the side supported by the hon. Member. The House confers an option upon me and I adopted, in the one case, one method and, in the other case, the other, I hope without irregularity.

Mr. Hughes: I gather that this is a very interesting constitutional precedent, that two different kinds of procedure may be adopted within a quarter of an hour. I should like to ask you, Mr. Speaker, what remedy an innocent private Member like myself has on these occasions who wishes to record his vote for a Schedule. For example, I rose and it was obvious that by rising I had voted—

Mr. Speaker: I hate stopping the hon. Member, but I have a duty to other hon. Members. In the first place, by reason of what the hon. Member said to me, it will be apparent, on the face of history as recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT, that he was the only hon. Member who rose in favour of this proposition on the first Division.
So far as the second Division is concerned, I say only this—that the responsibility of the hon. Member who is apparently the only one desiring to support the proposition is to try to procure someone who will tell with him. If he cannot find one, I am powerless to assist him in the matter, because there are not two Tellers, not sufficient Tellers, to provide for a Division under the ordinary procedure of this House.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

10.16 p.m.

Mr. Mitchison: There is one matter which I desire to mention and which I hope to get cleared up before we give this Bill a Third Reading. I was struck on Second Reading and when I saw the text of the Bill by the omission of any provisions about the money which the right hon. Gentleman is to receive in respect of the works in Hyde Park. A grant is made in a case of this kind for money, and the right hon. Gentleman, as appears in the text of the Bill or by

necessary inference from it, is to receive sums of quite a substantial character.
If I understand the procedure as it is at present, what is to happen to the receipts in question is that they will not be paid into the Consolidated Fund, but that they will be received by the Department and will be subject to directions by Treasury Minute under the Public Accounts and Charges Act, 1891. Under these directions, they may be appropriated in aid of the Department's Estimates. This is not the position when there is, in what I believe is the more usual course, a Money Resolution and money provision in the Bill itself.
I asked the right hon. Gentleman on Second Reading and again in Committee why it was that the usual procedure was not followed, and the right hon. Gentleman has waved me away and has said that he was told that it was not necessary. One reached the conclusion that whatever may be necessary for other people, the right hon. Gentleman thought that he could get away with anything when it came to money provisions. Let me be perfectly clear—and let there be no doubt about it—that I am not for one moment suggesting anything but that the right hon. Gentleman will deal with this money perfectly properly, but he will have to deal with it, as I see it, under the Statute which I have mentioned—the Public Accounts and Charges Act, 1891, which was intended to deal with fees and sales and so on and hardly ever with receipts of this magnitude arising out of the disposal of very substantial rights over Government property.
I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope we are to get a proper answer on this point this time, that if in fact this kind of procedure is to be followed in this case, then Parliamentary control is quite considerably removed. There is no question of being able to go into the appropriations-in-aid, which are matters beyond inquiry in Committee of Supply of this House. Assuming that the Treasury and the right hon. Gentleman were to be so minded, the Treasury could direct him to spend the receipts as appropriations-in-aid for some purpose or another of which the House as a body would not at all necessarily approve. This is an encroachment, as I see it, by the Executive on the Parliamentary control of money, and, therefore, it is something to be criticised, and,


if I am right in my suggestions, to be deprecated.
I take the passage about the Public Accounts and Charges Act from page 711 of Erskine May, but, as I see the Financial Secretary to the Treasury opposite, the same information could no doubt be obtained more fully and with equal authority from him. It may be that he is going to tell us what is the answer to the conundrum which I am putting now.
On the remaining parts of the Bill I have little to say. I share, with great respect, the sympathy which I can now express in his absence with my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) who was so anxious to have a Division on the last Amendment. I may be a little out of order in saying so, but my feelings are too strong for me and I feel bound to express my sympathy.
Substantially, there the Clause is, and we are now left in the position that we have to trust the Minister and the Treasury between them rather further than we on this side of the House would nave wished to trust them in a matter of this character. It is not because we think the Minister of Transport is untrustworthy. The right hon. Gentleman is looking pained, but there is no need for it. This is simply a matter of constitutional propriety.
As to the object which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind as a whole, we have always supported the Bill and have taken no steps whatever to delay it. We have tried to raise proper criticisms of it, but with its object to deal with the essential long-term parker we are in full sympathy. As for Clause 2, which deals with the amenities in Hyde Park, in view of what was said in Committee—and perhaps I am trespassing on the Rules of Order in mentioning them—and in view of the terms of the Bill which I may mention, we are broadly satisfied that all possible steps are being taken and, as we believe, will be taken, to protect the amenities of Hyde Park and to defend the interests of the public in the matter of aesthetics, even if they cannot be properly defended in the matter of contracts. Therefore, we shall certainly not oppose the Third Reading, subject to the point which I have mentioned and which I hope some member of the Government will elucidate.
Will the Government spokesman say at the same time whether the practice in the Bill will be followed in other cases or whether there will be proper Money Resolutions and proper arrangements for Parliamentary control in those cases? It is the Appropriation-in-Aid aspect that frightens me.

10.18 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): It is not that I wish to shirk the point at all, but I am not certain how far I should be in order in replying to the points made by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) on Third Reading. The question whether a Money Resolution is or is not required in a particular case is not, as I see it, strictly for the Government to decide. It is a matter governed by the rules and practice of the House of Commons and it is thus really the responsibility of that part of the House which, Mr. Speaker, falls within your jurisdiction. I should like to ask your guidance, therefore, before I speak further on that subject.

Mr. Speaker: Certainly, a Money Resolution is not required at this stage. We receive the Bill as it is on Third Reading. So far as I was not failing to listen to him, being occupied with other duties, I do not think that the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) was out of order, because he seemed to be discussing the effect of the provisions in the Bill, which is in order. As to the necessity for a Money Resolution, that inquiry is out of order on Third Reading.

Mr. Mitchison: Further to that point of order. With great respect, Sir, I did not intend to suggest that a Money Resolution was required for the Bill. The suggestion was that this method of procedure and the use of the 1891 Act, while no doubt legitimate, was open to other objection on the grounds which I tried to indicate. I trust that the Financial Secretary will be able to answer that point of substance, which, I submit, arises on the form of the Bill itself.

Mr. Speaker: If I may help, I respectfully agree with that. I think that it is quite right. I think that on Third Reading it is possible to criticise the form of


the provisions of the Bill which we discuss on Third Reading. I think that that is a permissible matter to argue.

Sir E. Boyle: I am not sure that I have quite understood the hon. and learned Gentleman's point—if I may say so, not through having failed to listen to him. Is he complaining about the procedure that has been used? I wonder whether he would put the point once again?

Mr. Mitchison: I am sorry to take up the time of the House. It was undoubtedly my fault. I am sure that I cannot have made myself clear. My point is—and here I am quoting from page 711 of Erskine May—that
the receipts which arise in the course of business of a department (through fees or sales, etc), are, instead of being paid into the Exchequer, directed by Treasury Minute under the Public Accounts and Charges Act, 1891, to be appropriated in aid of the department's estimate as if they were money provided by Parliament for that purpose.
What I am suggesting—I may be wrong—is that that is what is bound to happen in this case. We cannot just have a Minister receiving money and the disposal of it left absolutely at large. When we look for the appropriate statutory provision, that is the appropriate arrangement and that is the arrangement under which the miscellaneous receipts of departments, as I see it, are accounted for.
When we get to small things like fees and minor sales of calendars or something of that sort, one can have no objection, but when we get to the very substantial amounts which seem likely by the terms of this Bill to accrue to the Ministry, I suggest that it is regrettable that they should be so dealt with because, as appropriations in aid—quoting again from the same passage in Erskine May—
…the Committee of Supply cannot discuss the application, or reduce the amount, of appropriations in aid.
If they are appropriations-in-aid, I repeat what I said before: the Committee of Supply—that is the organ of this House for the purpose—cannot discuss the application. The result is that the monetary control of the House is very much loosened—indeed, somewhat absent in cases of this kind.
When we get a Minister asking for a free hand for negotiations, and getting an enabling Bill in these very broad

terms, then I suggest that it is a really serious infringement of Parliamentary control if the practice is used—legally, no doubt, but from a Parliamentary point of view I would suggest somewhat wrongly—to get the money dealt with in this way. I hope that I have made my point clear.

Sir E. Boyle: I apologise for not following the hon. and learned Gentleman earlier. The short answer to the hon. and learned Gentleman is that the power to direct appropriations in aid does not depend upon whether the Measure as we now have it on Third Reading says specifically that the money is payable into the Exchequer, but on whether it is, in fact, so payable.
I have looked at this passage which the hon. and learned Member has quoted from Erskine May. It is true that the normal way in our procedure of accounting fox receipts is to pay them into the Exchequer, though it is possible for the Treasury under the 1891 Act to direct their appropriation in aid. It certainly is the case that many Acts make express provisions for the payment of receipts into the Exchequer. On the other hand, I can tell the hon. and learned Gentleman that there are some precedents the other way.
To give one or two instances, fees payable to the Board of Trade under the Patents Act, 1949, or under the Films Act, 1960, are not expressly directed to be paid into the Exchequer. Section 39 of the Civil Aviation Act, 1949, deals with expenses, but not with the receipts arising from the provision of aerodrome facilities under Section 16.
There is also the case of the special roads which are now dealt with under Section 11 of the 1959 Highways Act, but were originally constructed under the Special Roads Act, 1949. Among the facilities provided for the M.1 by the Ministry of Transport as the highway authority are service stations and restaurants. These are leased to private contractors much as the garage under Hyde Park might be. Naturally, the rents for these places come in the first place to the Minister and then to the Exchequer, although there is nothing specifically in the Special Roads Act, 1949, which says so. While I take note of the point made by the hon. and


learned Gentleman, and agree that he can quote a number of precedents, there are also a number of precedents for dealing with this matter in the way proposed in the present Bill.

Mr. Mitchison: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the precedents which he quotes are neither close nor desirable? It is somewhat late at night to go into a subject which, I hope, will attract the attention of the Treasury in due course, not only in connection with this matter but with other Bills.

Sir E. Boyle: By leave of the House, may I say to the hon. and learned Gentleman that I certainly take note of what he says. I do not agree that the

facilities which I quoted are not analogous to the present case. I should have said that they were analogous. I do not think that there is anything peculiar about the way we propose to proceed under the present Bill.

Mr. Mitchison: If I may, with the leave of the House, say one sentence to the hon. Gentleman, surely service stations on M roads, which, I think, was the instance he had in mind, are a very different matter from disposing of considerable interests in a very valuable piece of Crown property, and attracting large sums of money by doing so.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — SHERIFFS' PENSIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Clause 6.—(RETIRING AGE.)

10.34 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. William Grant): I beg to move, in page 3, line 32, at the end to add:
(2) The provisions of the last foregoing subsection shall apply to a sheriff who is not restricted by the terms of his appointment from engaging in private practice and who is appointed after the commencement of this Act.
It might be for the convenience of the House if, with this Amendment, we consider the two following Amendments to Clauses 9 and 10.
These Amendments apply to the retiring age of sheriffs not restricted from private practice. The object is to apply the retiring age of 72 to part-time sheriffs as well as to full-time sheriffs. It applies to those appointed after the commencement of the Act. An Amendment was moved in Committee stage by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) and I gave an undertaking to take the appropriate steps at the appropriate time to put into effect the extremely good idea of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. E. G. Willis: I wish to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for having accepted the Amendment and for framing it in a much more satisfactory manner for inclusion in the Bill. It deals with what was obviously an anomaly, that in one case there could be a sheriff of 75 or 80 years of age and in the other a sheriff had to be under the age of 72.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I want a more precise reason why the age 72 is included in the Bill. What is the justification for it, in preference to 70 or 75? I should like an assurance that the members of the judiciary in Scotland are not being treated in an inferior way to those in England.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not find those words in the Amendment, nor do I understand how they are governed by the Amendment. I should welcome the  Member's assistance, if he submits

that he is in order on this Amendment, but at the moment I do not follow him.

Mr. Hughes: I regret that I do not follow the Amendment. I should like a further explanation, Sir.

Mr. Speaker: With respect, the hon. Member can talk only about what is in order on the Amendment, and I do not follow why that can be said to be in order on the Amendment. That is my difficulty.

Mr. Hughes: My difficulty is that I am trying to ask an innocent question to which I want a plain answer.

Mr. Speaker: The question, however innocent, must be within the rules of order on the Amendment. If the hon. Member can help me I shall be grateful, but if not, I must declare what he said out of order. I am open to persuasion.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: On a point of order. The Amendment says:
The provisions of the last foregoing subsection shall apply to a sheriff who is not restricted…
and the provisions of that subsection are that a sheriff must retire not later than the age of 72. The Amendment applies the age of 72 to a category of sheriffs who would not be covered by the Clause as originally drawn.

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Member. I apologise to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I think that he was just in order, and I am sorry that I stopped him.

Mr. Hughes: I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for having in any way put you in a difficulty. All I seek is a simple answer to the question.

The Lord Advocate: There is no golden magic in the age of 72, but it is the retiring age for judges in England who are as far as possible comparable to sheriffs. It was the age recommended as the retiring age by two Royal Commissions. Admittedly the first was in 1913, but as we live longer now the argument would be for extending the age rather than keeping it at 72. One must exercise a certain amount of judgment in the matter; one person may suggest 70, another 72 and another 75. We


discussed this in Committee and the Committee thought that 72 was an appropriate age for the compulsory retiral of full-time sheriffs and sheriff substitutes. We have chosen the same age for the part-time sheriffs, who are doing the same work, although only part-time, as are the full-time sheriffs.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 9.—(OPTION FOR EXISTING SHERIFFS.)

Amendment made: In page 4, line 11, after "years", insert "subsection (1) of".—[The Lord Advocate.]

Clause 10.—(INTERPRETATION.)

Amendment made: In page 4, line 20, after "sheriff", insert:
except in subsection (2) of section six".—
[The Lord Advocate.]

Bill read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — PALACE OF WESTMINSTER (STAFF)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

10.39 p.m.

Mr. Llywelyn Williams: It might be helpful if I made clear at the very beginning why I have chosen to speak tonight on the question of the employment of coloured persons by the House of Commons. My belief in the Commonwealth is tremendously powerful and my desire to strengthen it is very sincere. Coloured people are very sensitive to insult—and who can blame them if they are? Some of the recent speeches which have been delivered in this Chamber have been very unfortunate. On the other hand, I have found coloured people to be touchingly grateful for and responsive to friendly and imaginative gestures.
We are always proud to claim this to be the Mother of Parliaments, and London to be the greatest city in the world. This Palace of Westminster, and Big Ben, in particular, evoke very great admiration throughout the world, not least among the coloured people. After all, millions of coloured people in Africa and the West Indies have reaped great social and economic benefits,

guidance and education culminating in political freedom as a result of what has been done here under the watchful shadow of Big Ben.
This place is also the mecca of hundreds of thousands of people each year. It am sure that no legislative chamber attracts as many visitors as do the Houses of Parliament. Compared with this legislative assembly, the House of Representatives in Washington, the Chamber of Deputies in Paris, the Bundestag in Bonn, and its counterpart in Moscow, are not nearly so popular with visitors.
That is why I respectfully ask the Minister of Works to extend, as far as it lies in his power, the right hand of fellowship to coloured people from Africa and the West Indies. I believe that there is a fellowship here, not only between hon. Members but between hon. Members, members of the public and the various staffs represented here—messengers, police officers, post office officials, waiters, waitresses, and so on.
I know that the responsibility of the Minister of Works for employing personnel here is very limited. The Serjeant at Arms, the Commissioner of Police and the Lord Great Chamberlain, among others, also come into the picture. That is why I appeal to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and, through you, to Mr. Speaker himself, as my representative in these matters, to come to my aid, so that if I offend procedurally or in allocating responsibility you will appreciate that I seek only to establish a principle.
In the very nature of things, the Minister of Works must have quite a deal of power of persuasion and influence in the making of appointments. Could I therefore enlist his good will in future appointments to various posts in this Palace, in either a direct or an indirect fashion, so that a few coloured Commonwealth persons may be appointed? I feel certain, and this is the gist of my case, that such a gesture, imaginative and generous, would bring an added sense of pride and affection to those who regard the House of Commons as the embodiment of everything that is best in the democratic way of life. Who knows but that that type of gesture might not also be emulated in other Royal Palaces?
I beg the House not to believe that this matter is much ado about nothing. These gestures speak more eloquently than any words about our belief in the equality of man and the qualities of harmonious, multi-racial relationships. By and large, both sides of the House have a genuine concern and respect for our coloured friends from Africa and the West Indies. If this were visibly revealed to us, as Members of the House, and to the public when they visited us, by the presence amongst us of a coloured police officer, or messenger, or clerk, then our moral authority in these matters would be considerably enhanced.
Justice to our fellow members of the Commonwealth in the Palace of Westminster would not only be done but would be seen to be done. Action on these lines would pay handsome dividends. More important, it would give great satisfaction in Africa and the West Indies, and a sense of real pride to the occupants of such future appointments. What I am asking for does not need a lengthy and elaborate presentation as a case. I only know that I feel instinctively that this step would be practical and progressive and morally right.

10.46 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Fisher: I fear that it is a little anti-social to seek to catch the eye of the Chair for the second time in one Parliamentary day, and also on a Commonwealth matter, but I would like to support wholeheartedly the suggestion put by the hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Ll. Williams). We in this House, on both sides, support the concept of the multi-racial States, of multi-racial societies in our multi-racial Commonwealth. That is the whole basis of our Commonwealth policy under successive and different party Governments.
All of us claim that we are totally devoid of any colour prejudice. If we are really sincere in that claim, then we cannot possibly object to this plea. Indeed, we should welcome it. Every year, every month, almost every day, as the hon. Member has pointed out, coloured visitors, whether they be visiting ministers, or members of Commonwealth or Colonial Parliaments, or whether they be students here, or immigrants from the West Indies or elsewhere, make their pilgrimage to the House of Commons.
We entertain them to meals here; they attend Commonwealth Parliamentary Association courses here—one such course is now taking place; we see them in the Visitors' Gallery—though there is none here tonight, which is an exception rather than the rule, for almost every day there are coloured visitors listening to our debates, absorbing our democratic traditions and learning our Parliamentary procedures so that they can practise them in their own countries.
Thus, this Palace of Westminster is the heart of the Commonwealth. How little difference it would make to us if one or two policemen, or perhaps badge messengers, or a few members of the catering staff, were British citizens from Africa or the West Indies.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order. The hon. Gentleman is in danger of going further than he is entitled to, because the Minister of Works is not responsible for the people whom he is now mentioning.

Mr. Fisher: In that case, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I should, perhaps, not have gone into so much detail. Indeed, it is irrelevant to do so.
The main object which the hon. Member for Abertillery and I have in mind is to give these many visitors who come here what I believe would be a splendid and encouraging sign of the unifying spirit of the Commonwealth—the sight of some of their compatriots taking their place as part of our parliamentary life. That is our purpose in raising this matter tonight. So far as I can see, it would do not possible harm, but it would do an immense amount of good throughout the Commonwealth when it became known that we accepted this very imaginative innovation.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works has himself been Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, so he fully understands the arguments we are putting forward and I do not think that we need elaborate them. I hope that he will seize the opportunity of the hon. Member's suggestion and thus show the Commonwealth, and, indeed, the world, that by our example, in this Palace of Westminster, we really practise what we preach when we say there is no colour


bar and no colour prejudice in the daily life of the United Kingdom Parliament.

10.52 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Richard Thompson): The hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Ll. Williams), in his concluding remarks, said very properly that there was no need for lengthy and elaborate presentation of the case he had to make. By the same token, I believe that he will not think me discourteous or in any way unmindful of the importance of the case he has argued, so well supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. N. Fisher), if I reply quite briefly, because, of course, some of the things which have been raised tonight do not fall within the precise ambit of my Department. I think, however, that I can give the hon. Member certain general assurances which, I hope, will be very satisfactory to him.
First, as I think he well knows, we operate no colour bar of any sort. Provided that applicants for the jobs available are British subjects, they are all considered on an equal footing without discrimination of any kind. Naturally, of course, they have to meet necessary educational requirements, but that is only to be expected. I would want the hon. Member to be quite sure that there is no question of a colour bar here at all. He might like to know that we already have on our staff four West Africans.
I can quite see the point he made that it might be helpful if some of these employees were employed more in the kind of posts where perhaps the public would see more of them. I see what he means, but I can speak only of the employees for whom my department has responsibility and the nature of our responsibility is such that most of our people work relatively unseen, behind the scenes. They do a very good job,

sometimes at times when the general public, indeed, when hon. Members, are not about.
They are not very much in evidence and there is not very much that I can do about that, because the Ministry of Works employs only a small fraction of the people who work here. It is not for me to speak for any other department, but, as the hon. Member readily agreed, the Serjeant at Arms, the Lord Great Chamberlain and all the others are ones for which I could not give him any reply.

Mr. Ll. Williams: I appreciate that the sphere of the Ministry of Works is limited, but I particularly stressed the possibility of persuasion and influence. I thought that that would be in order.

Mr. Thompson: I have no doubt that those concerned will take note of what has been said in the debate. I can say once again that in the matters which fall within my responsibility we operate a completely non-colour bar policy.
Indeed, if one considers the Ministry of Works in a wider context it will be seen that we have a number of coloured people spread over a variety of grades. It is not our usual practice to recruit people for employment specifically here, and very often they have come here after acquiring experience elsewhere. In so far as these matters affect my Department, we pursue a policy which is in entire harmony with the views expressed this evening and with what the two hon. Members would wish.
As for the other authorities involved, as I have already said, no doubt they will take note of what has been said so well in this short debate and, I hope, will be as broadminded as we are in our relations with our own people.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Eleven o'clock.